Tales Of The Ubermensch: The Sorceress's Apprentice
by Gamera Obscura
Summary: After over a decade of abuse at the hands of a master hypnotist, and years of suffering and anguish at the memories she has programmed him to recover, Marcus finds a familiar face returning to his life with a new name and a new identity. But what does she have in store for him? More suffering and torment, or a greater purpose that may transform his life? Based on the viral eBook.
1. An Unexpected Meeting

**.  
Tales of the Ubermensch:  
The Sorceress's Apprentice  
Chapter 1: An Unexpected Meeting  
By Gamera Obscura**

* * *

 **(Author's Foreword: This story takes place in the universe of the free eBook "Tales of the Ubermensch: Hack dot World", approximately a year after the completion of that tale. All main characters are as faithfully adapted from that work as I could manage and still tell my story.)**

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 **[Trigger Warning: This chapter mentions child molestation, but does not depict it or describe it in any way.]**

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 **"People who truly want to change actually** _ **do**_ **change. They work at it. They improve themselves. You want to  
be able to perfect yourself without feeling that you have to sacrifice anything. You're lazy. The world is filled with  
people like you, and that is the part of the problem. You don't actually want it enough to do anything about it."**

 **-Delilah Hanson (The Ubermensch) – _Tales of the Ubermensch: Hack dot World_**

* * *

It was a sultry July evening in 2011; I had been out of the psychiatric hospital, my third stay, for almost a year now. Karen had left me and moved out, and I was living alone in a three-bedroom, 2000 square foot condo that was immaculately appointed, with everything in its place. Part of the reason for this was my need to keep an orderly space, but the other reason was that the only rooms I used in my home these days were my bedroom (or more specifically, the bed), the desk in my office, and the toilet. Showers were a luxury; it had been over seven days since I'd taken one. In the old days, I took up to three showers a day, but since my troubles began, I had practically stopped bathing or brushing my teeth, or doing anything about my appearance at all, short of having Karen over to shave my head with the clippers once a month. I just didn't see the point.

This probably sounds grotesque to you, a man who's given up on life and doesn't bathe, brush his teeth, or shave, or care about his appearance at all. My grocery shopping was done at 5 in the morning, so I could have contact with as few people as possible. Again, a strange methodology, but I assure you, there was a method to my madness.

You see, over a decade before, I had first encountered the Ubermensch, and that encounter served to both send my fate spinning off in a radically new direction, and it also was the preamble to the ultimate destruction of my life.

My name is Marcus Jones. I was 40 years old. I had no friends. I had no job, or hope of resurrecting my career. I sat all day in my high backed leather office chair, playing World of Warcraft. I didn't actually play the game; I used the game as a social outlet, connecting instead on a social level with my guildies and other players. She had said that was okay, that it was safe.

For them.

I used to be a different person. While I was never particularly stable, I had a high paying career in the IT field, making over $150,000 a year. I was meticulously dressed and scented, and was what most would have considered "metrosexual". My head was shaved, more an affectation than out of any sign of encroaching baldness, and I wore a $1000 outfit every day. A pair of $200 jeans, a $150 shirt, $50 socks, $250 shoes, and a $1500 watch along with a $15,000 white gold diamond ring on my pinky as my only jewelry.

I was heavy-set, but I was tall and handsome, even then, and had once been considered a catch, despite my weight. In my day, I'd had nearly 200 female sexual partners, and nearly 50 male partners, and virtually none of the female partners were one night stands, as I hated one night stands and anonymous sex, and had given up on those sorts of encounters in my very early 20s. Before the Ubermensch came into my life (and even after), I would often juggle as many as twelve women at once, with a different woman (or pair of women) in my bed every night of the week on a set rotation. This made me happy, and made me feel as though my life was an enviable and fulfilling one.

In short, I was a fool.

The Ubermensch first got her hooks into me in 1998, I know this much now. She uses hypnosis to get what she wants, and has spent over twenty years spreading a hypnotic "Virus" from person to person in what will likely be a successful attempt to subjugate the entire world. She had already controlled billions, and said she would control everyone by 2016. She had declared herself the God of a new world, and as I understood it, she spent the intervening time punishing the wicked. That was how she had gotten to me, by discovering that at age 10, I had molested a 2-year-old girl. Now, while that's a shocking and despicable admission, most people would wave it off by saying that I, too, was a child at the time, and that tens of thousands of children experiment in the same way every year. The Ubermensch – Delilah Hanson, as she presented herself to me – did not see it in those terms.

She said that had I not known that my actions were wrong, I would not have taken the painstaking steps that I had to hide what I had done. And my actions were my actions, and my choices were my choices, regardless of how old I was. I was old enough to Know Better. Old enough to know that what I was doing was very, very wrong.

The worst part about it was that she was absolutely right in everything she said. She always was.

So she programmed me to ruin my own life, using hypnosis, and then with that same skill, made me forget everything she had told me. She had come into my life as a lover, and we spent years together. She punished me for my actions while were a couple, always making me forget what she had done, at least for the time being. When she was particularly angry with me, she would force me to eat my own feces, which always shattered my psyche and traumatized me in ways that my history of childhood abuse could not hope to compete with. Then she would make me forget, and it was like nothing had ever happened.

Finally, on March 22nd, 2006, months after she had programmed me to dump her, she invited me over to her apartment, and spent several hours programming me in what I would later remember to be the last and most recent time she had hypnotized me. The endgame of our little play proved to me without a shadow of a doubt that she was controlling the world, and that finally, when she took over everyone, she would kill all those crippled by another kind of "Virus", a Virus of abuse and violence, and create her own version of a perfect world.

You see, she explained that our ethos of abuse and violence was a life form, a living thing, a Virus of the mind, that sought to reproduce by causing the victims of violence or abuse to inflict further violence or abuse on others, infecting them with this same Virus. This particular Virus had spread from person to person, crippling the human population for tens of thousands of years, since the very Dawn of Man, and she was going to stamp it out once and for all, using her hypnotic control.

Because I was a Jew, she would kill all the Jews, and make everyone believe that the Nazis had won the Second World War. Additionally, everyone that had ever laid eyes on me would be killed, including everyone I had ever met, and then she would erase everything I ever loved from the collective consciousness of the world, beginning with Star Trek, Harry Potter, and the collected works of Stephen King, all gone, as if they had never existed.

So now, you know why I shopped for groceries at five in the morning. My sense of morality wouldn't allow me to walk through a crowded grocery store at four in the afternoon, killing as many as a hundred people just because they looked at me. The only safe way that I could interact with people was online, and through MMORPG gaming guilds in particular.

When your mere appearance can mean death, you cease caring what appearance is. You cease caring what you look and smell like. My degradation and collapse should be not only be understandable under these circumstances, but obvious. I doubt that you, my dear friend, would have fared any better than I, were our roles reversed.

The problem is, she lies. Many of the things she had predicted to me over the years had not come to pass. Most would say that this was a sign of a self-reinforcing delusion, but I knew better. She would predict things well in advance as I sat, frozen, in a hypnotic state, aware of my surroundings and what she was doing to me, at least until she made me forget again. Most of her old predictions – or prophesies – from our most recent prior encounter would have already come to pass, proving to me for certain that she was manipulating world events. She had foretold the downing of the twin towers on 9/11, the deaths of Anna Nicole Smith and her son, the death of Michael Jackson, and the disgrace of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, among many other things.

But following early 2008, when she had programmed me to begin to remember what she had done to me in dribs and drabs, while everything she had predicted to happen prior to that moment had occurred precisely as she had prophesied, everything that she had prophesied to happen after my remembrance had failed to occur, with one notable exception: The financial crisis of 2008, and that had only happened because one night she had asked me the question, "What kind of era would you least like to live in?"

My first answer, "A post-apocalyptic era" had been too extreme for her purposes, so after a few other answers that were equally unacceptable, I finally came up with the answer, "An economic depression". Whether or not the economy degenerated into a full-blown depression still remained to be seen, however.

So, as I said, she lies. I suspect the false prophesies were to make me appear as though I was insane, and to discredit me as I foretold the future I believed without a doubt was going to happen to my family and the friends that had not yet abandoned me.

Another element of my decline was the discovery of things that she had left behind for me in popular media. One of her tactics was to create works or leave Easter eggs for her victims in movies, television shows, songs, video games, and more. The song "The Pretender" by Foo Fighters, I would learn, was about my sexual addiction, the need to make women fall in love with me and wrap myself in a cloak of their affection and adoration, and told from Delilah's perspective, who said "What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays; you're The Pretender, what if I say that I will never surrender?"

Another song from her to me was Shinedown's "The Sound of Madness", which led me to believe that her method of spreading her control was through the use of a hypersonic tone that her proxies used to place their victims into a suggestible state.

I looked at the chain tattoo on my wrist, a reference to the video game _Bioshock_ , which was not only created for my benefit, but was also a morality test for me and every other player of the game as well, layered directly into the gameplay. The tattoo had been forced upon me as a reminder of my enslavement to a woman of monstrous cruelty and Godlike intellect.

It was 5:37 in the afternoon on this, the 21st of July, 2011, when the message first appeared on my screen:

 **VelvetRose73: Hi there.**

I blinked, surprised that a person I had never spoken to before would contact me out of the blue.

 **Shion414: Hi. Who is this?**

The messages were coming through on Yahoo Instant Messenger, which I used almost exclusively, as Facebook Messenger and Skype were not yet as popular as they have become in the intervening years.

 **VelvetRose73: My name is Rose. How are you?  
Shion414: I'm fine. Good to meet you. How can I help you?**

My first impulse was this was a bot, which was not unusual for Instant Messenger platforms, even in 2011, but I quickly discovered that I was speaking to a real person.

 **VelvetRose73: I saw you live in Milwaukee too, and saw your profile picture. You're cute. I was wondering if you'd like to get together for dinner.**

My blood ran cold. This was almost identical to the method in which Delilah had contacted me back in 2003 for our seventh and final "first meeting". Even the year, "73" was the same year of Delilah's alleged birth, when she went by the Yahoo Instant Messenger handle "Tarnished_Angel73". I decided to respond the same way I had back in 2003.

 **Shion414: That sounds nice, but I generally like to get to know someone before I meet them in person.**

After a pause:

 **VelvetRose73: I find that people usually have chemistry in person or they don't. I don't like to waste my time talking to someone when there's no chemistry. I'd much rather meet in person to determine if there's any chemistry before moving forward. It's up to you, though.**

Once again, this was all very familiar. Was this a third party acting on Delilah's behalf? She had left my life half a decade before, and made it clear in my programming, now recovered as a memory, that she would not be returning. But she lied. She almost always lied. The only thing I knew about her for sure was that she was controlling the world with her hypnosis. I didn't know if it was a trigger phrase she had used on me, folded into one of her instant messages, or if it was genuine curiosity, but I wanted to know if it was her. I wanted to be sure. Once again, the program was moving, and I had to get into this bumper car once more, and ride this ride until it was over.

 **Shion414: Sure, we can get together, if you want. Where and when?  
VelvetRose73: Do you know the Chancery on 27th Street in Greenfield?**

Of course I did. I'd been there several dozen times over the years, and I told her so.

 **VelvetRose73: Then meet me there at 7:30 tonight. I'll be in a black pants-suit with a red and gold striped blouse. I am 5'3" and have long, dark brown hair. Find me in the bar.**

That cinched it. It was Delilah. Those were her stats. There was only one answer to her order.

 **Shion414: I'll be there.  
VelvetRose73: I'll see you then.**

Once she terminated the discussion, I lit a cigarette and began shaking in anticipation. This was a woman who had done horrible, grotesque things to me over the years, but despite it all, either because of her programming or the awesomeness of the power she wielded, I loved her utterly and completely. I smoked in silence as my hand shook and my body quaked. This evening might signal the start of a whole new chapter of my life. It might also be a portent of the beginning of the end of it, as she had promised repeatedly to kill me one day.

Of course, that death, as prophesied, was supposed to be in the shadow of a nuclear mushroom cloud following the destruction of Milwaukee, as a crowd of hundreds, possibly thousands of people circled me, waiting for me to move a muscle, at which time they would descend upon me and rip me limb from limb. In the meantime, I would be absorbing enough radiation to kill me from rad-sickness over the course of the next few weeks, assuming I could avoid moving for the next ninety minutes. She knew, however, as did I, that with my back problems, there was no way I could manage such a feat. I could not stand still without rocking back and forth for more than a minute or two. I would make a wish, that this cup would pass, and then snap my fingers and give myself to the crowd.

Of course, as I had learned over the last three and a half years, this was probably a lie as well, but it didn't stop me from being scared shitless at the prospect for several years, until I made peace with this possible fate.

I finished my cigarette and stepped into the shower, now that I had a reason to take one. I shaved my head and face, except for the tight goatee I wore around my mouth, which I would later trim with electric clippers, and scrubbed my entire body five times to make sure I was completely clean and smelling fresh. When I had dried off, I sprayed myself liberally with one of my favorite colognes; one of the holdovers from my old ways was to keep a collection of over 25 large bottles of various scents, which had cost me well over $1000. As my favorites were depleted, I still bought more.

Even though I was living on Social Security Disability, the ample income that Delilah had provided for me in the years prior to my breakdown had ensured that my benefit from the Federal Government was close to the maximum allowable rate, which meant that even though I was on disability, I still made enough to live quite comfortably.

I rubbed some cologne into my pubic hair, which I used to trim in the old days. While the growth between my legs was now a tangled mess, I still liked to apply a scent on my mound, in case I was fortunate enough that someone might want to bury their face there. I chuckled sadly to myself as I thought of the prospect, as I had been impotent for years, ever since my breakdown. Even Viagra and Cialis had been powerless to give me an erection, which made it likely that my problems in that area were psychological in nature. Still, old habits die hard, and I remembered that I had done the exact same thing before going to one of my many "first meetings" with Delilah.

I dressed in fresh, clean clothes, and when the time was right, I headed out the door and drove the fifteen minutes to the restaurant. The parking lot was nearly empty, and I pulled my Toyota Solara convertible, a holdover from my days of expensive toys and lavish vacations, into a spot next to a brand new, cherry red Lamborghini.

As I entered the restaurant at exactly 7:30PM, I noticed that there wasn't a single diner in sight. I made my way to the right, towards the bar, and saw a short, heavyset woman in a black suit that had her back to me. As I made my way up to her, I wheeled around and saw her face.

Sure enough, it was Delilah Hanson, my arch nemesis, the woman who had utterly ruined my life, and the woman I would give up everything to be with, that I would do literally anything to win her favor.

"Good evening, Delilah," I said to her reverently.

"Who?" she asked innocently. "My name is Rose, as I told you online."

Okay, so she was going to continue with the pretense of being another person. She was good at playing games, and even better at playing dumb. I could play along easily enough.

"I'm sorry, you look exactly like someone I used to know," I said to her.

She smirked sardonically. "I get that a lot," she said. "Just one of those faces, I guess."

I sat down at the round bistro table across from her. Her days of wearing ugly bangs and slovenly clothing was obviously over. She was dressed in a designer outfit, and her hair and makeup were done to perfection. I had never seen her look so beautiful, in all the years I had known her. The Lamborghini outside was almost certainly hers as well. I wondered what made her change her style so radically; the trappings of wealth and success had never seemed to matter to her before.

A waiter came over and she ordered a couple of glasses of Jonnie Walker Blue Label on the rocks for us. The drink was $30 a shot, so the order must have easily been over $200. "Drinks and dinner are on me," she said, to my relief.

"So, 'Rose', what is it that you do for a living?" I asked her.

She reached into her Versace purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a gold lighter. "I'm a project director for the Rand Corporation," she replied.

"You work for a think tank?" I asked, incredulously. "What kind of projects do you work on there?"

"I'm afraid most of my work is confidential," she said. "But much of it is political in nature. Political strategy, mostly, as well as economics. I have degrees in political science and economics, you see."

 _Of course you do,_ I thought cynically. She was the smartest person in the world. She probably held the combined knowledge of the entire human race between her ears, the equivalent of hundreds, if not thousands of advanced degrees in every field imaginable.

She lit a cigarette, a Marlboro Menthol Gold 100, exactly like the kind I smoked, and offered me one. I took it, and she lit it, in clear defiance of Wisconsin's laws against smoking in public buildings.

The waiter came over, clearly perturbed. "I'm sorry, but it's against the law for you to smoke in here," he said to both of us.

"Bring us an ashtray," she said, and the waiter wandered off, looking confused. He returned a minute later with our drinks, as well as a glass ashtray. She must have had them buy one for the evening.

"How did you manage to get them to back down on the smoking?" I asked her, already knowing, or at least strongly suspecting, the answer.

"I find that if you're confident enough, people will do anything you ask," she said. She opened her menu and began to scan the offerings. I moved to do the same, but she ordered me to close my menu. "I will be ordering for you," she said.

This almost made me laugh, but I held it in. "Of course," I said. I was already her slave, why shouldn't she have the right to decide what I ate and drank? I took a sip of the thirty-year-old Blue Label, and understood immediately what it was that made it so expensive.

As we drank, ate, and smoked over the course of the next two hours, the conversation was free and easy, at least on the surface. There was clearly "chemistry" between us, but there was also an underlying ribbon of tension at the table; despite enjoying my evening, and Delilah's – "Rose's" company, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. No one else came into the restaurant, and I thought this would be the perfect place for her to trigger me and lay down some new programming. This seemed to be a set-up, and while I was powerless to prevent her from doing whatever it was she had in store for me, I also could not help but feel a certain degree of apprehension because of it.

Finally, the check came, and Delilah pulled out a black American Express Centurion card from her wallet, and placed it in the bill folder, handing it back without looking at the price.

We lit one last cigarette as we waited over coffee for her card to be returned. "Well, Rose, what happens now?"

Rose smiled at me. "Now we finish our cigarettes and coffee, and you get into my car and come back to my home," she said.

"As you wish," I replied. "Your merest whim is my command," I said with a tone dripping with irony.

We drove to the waterfront in silence, and she pulled into her spot in the parking garage inside one of the newer lakeside high rises. We took a private elevator up to the penthouse, and I marveled at what must have been an 8000 square foot monument to unlimited funds. It was a far cry from the conditions she was in when I met her, living in another woman's unfinished basement and babysitting in exchange for rent.

She undressed in the foyer, and I knew without knowing how that the lingerie she wore was a $4000 ensemble by Agent Provocateur. The thong alone cost over $600, and had golden chains across the cheeks of her ass, as did the bra, which draped several strands across the exposed skin of her ample chest. "I didn't think Agent Provocateur came in your size," I said.

"I had them custom make sets for me in my size," she said. She looked radiant in the outfit, which was black and purple, and had a garter belt. The bra was truly unique, and just barely covered her enormous breasts; the bra was almost completely sheer, and her brown nipples and olive skin were visible through the fabric.

She led me to the bedroom, and we spent the next three hours making love and exploring each others' bodies. To my surprise (although I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised at all), impotence was not a problem on this night, nor has it been an issue since. I've always liked bigger girls, and while I had found her somewhat unattractive when we had dated in the early 2000s, I found myself excited and thrilled to be in her opulent bedroom, with my arms wrapped around her. When we dated, my unconscious hatred for what she had been doing to me had prevented me from kissing her, but on this particular night, my mouth remained firmly planted upon hers for much of the experience, as my hands roamed her generous body and as I entered her, which felt like coming home again at last. From the orgasms she had repeatedly through the entire encounter, clearly I was not the only one who felt that way.

When we were finished, she asked me if she could whisper something in my ear.

I tensed up. _Here it comes,_ I thought. She was going to trigger me, bring down the hammer, drop a proverbial anvil on my head, whatever you wanted to call it, and probably make me forget the entire encounter once it was over.

"Of course," I said casually.

She leaned in close, her mouth next to my right ear, the ear she always spoke into when she wanted to do intricate, long-term programming on me.

"I love you, Marcus," she whispered, and then triggered me, exactly as I had suspected she would.

She then spent the next hour laying down programming unlike anything I had ever experienced before. She unlocked every potential I could imagine. I could quit smoking any time I wanted to. I would only want to eat when I was hungry, and then only in moderation. Weight loss would become a breeze for me. Then, she removed my PTSD from various traumas in my past, and finally, gave me instant and total recall of every moment of every day of my life, effectively giving me a perfect memory, just like her own, save for the sections she had previously made me forget. She was turning me, word by word, into something more than human, something more like herself. When she was finished, she put me to sleep.

A man climbed into her bed that night, but what emerged from it the next morning was more than a man, more than human. I would never be the same again.

And the adventure had not even yet begun.

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 **(Author's Note: Obviously, after the darkness and murder of the story "Tales of the Ubermensch: The Series", this is a much lighter and (hopefully) happier tale. I am finding it is not a chore to write, now that my week-long break is over following "Firefly: Deleted Scenes", but I look forward to every keystroke, and find the creation and creative process free and easy. I hope you have enjoyed this preamble to what is likely to be a 3-4 chapter story, and I hope it is every bit as fulfilling as "TOTU: The Series".)**


	2. The Dance Of The Marionettes

**.  
Tales of the Ubermensch:  
The Sorceress's Apprentice  
Chapter 2: The Dance Of The Marionettes  
By Gamera Obscura**

* * *

" **I was in awe of this woman. I secretly said a prayer: I wanted her to enslave me. I wanted to be hers. I wanted her to make my  
life a beautiful, surreal dream, just like in some of the stories I'd read. A benevolent master, who would teach me her skills. She  
would help me,and I in turn would help others. I felt lust and greed and envy for this power, power to change people for the better"**

 **-Nada the Damned (Marcus Jones) – _Tales of the Ubermensch: Hack dot World_**

* * *

"At approximately 9:05AM, on Saturday, July 10th, 1982, I made omelets for my family with sliced cheddar cheese. Sharp cheddar." It was the following morning, and I was still amazed at my newfound ability to recall every mundane and tiny detail of my life. "What did you have for breakfast that morning?"

"I don't remember," Rose lied. "I don't have that kind of memory. It's amazing that you remember things from so long ago in such detail. I wish I had that kind of memory."

I laughed. There was a twinkle in her eyes, as though there was a private joke that we both shared, but we were both loathe to speak it.

Rose's live-in servant Penny served us breakfast, which consisted of scrambled eggs, rye toast, hash browns, and bacon with freshly squeezed orange juice, then left the room. Despite looking like a centerfold model, Penny served as Rose's maid, driver, personal assistant, cook, and housekeeper. It was apparent that Penny was under Rose's control – of course she naturally would be – but it was specifically evidenced by the fact that Penny had utterly failed to notice that Rose and I had come to the dining room completely nude, at Rose's insistence.

"It's amazing that she doesn't sue you for sexual harassment, given the fact that you parade yourself – and apparently others – in front of her naked."

"You're the first person she's seen naked at work, besides me," Rose said. "Besides, the people under me are discreet and very understanding of my personal preferences and foibles."

"Apparently so," I said, then paused for a few moments as I ate. "That was quite a night we had last night."

"Yes, it was," Rose agreed. "And I hope you don't think it's too forward of me to say that I'd like to have many, many more like it with you."

I paused for a moment. Things seemed to be going very, very well. I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop; Delilah had been a master at giving me hope, even making me believe my entire life was about to be transformed, in ways that surpassed my wildest dreams, only to have that hope ripped from me at the last possible moment. Still, there was an offer on the table, and while I was afraid of the tables being turned on me yet again, there was clearly only one answer.

"I'd like that," I said.

"Good," she said. "To that end, I'd like you to move in. I know it's rather quick in our relationship, but I'm not one that believes in wasting time; when I see something I want, I take it. I can either have your furniture and nonessential possessions placed in storage at my expense, or sell them, along with your condo through an estate sale company I sometimes use in my work. I guarantee you will get top dollar for your things."

My heart was pounding in my chest. Less than a day ago, I was trapped in a ball-numbing hell of boredom and loneliness. Now the woman I most idolized in the world had suddenly returned to me and was showing me kindness beyond imagination. I wasn't going to hedge on this. I was all in, no going back.

"I'd be happy to move in, and I'll sell," I said. "I'll want my cats to come along and live here, though. I hope that's not a problem."

"It's not. I'm a cat person, myself. And I currently have no pets," Rose said between bites. "I understand you'll want a private space, a man-cave, as it were. I have a somewhat large room set aside. You can use that. I have to warn you, though, that I travel frequently, and while you might be able to join me some of the time, you will not always be able to come along. In those cases, when we are separated, I will make sure that Penny sees to your needs."

I swallowed some eggs. "What sort of needs?"

"Any and all," Rose said. "I believe you will find her quite accommodating, not to mention pliant."

I crossed my legs under the table, to hide my growing erection. This situation was getting better by the moment. "Is there anything else that I should know?"

"Yes," Rose replied. "I will see to it that a Amex Centurion card in your name will be sent over within a few days. I do expect to engage you in my work, and you may need it to join me when I am out of town, the card is for your travel, as well as to pay for your expenses; you may use it to buy anything you like, within reason."

I laughed at this.

"Why is that funny?" Rose asked.

I was a bit taken aback by the question. "Oh, I'm sorry. I, uh… Well, back in 2003, I had a credit card drawn for a woman I was dating; it was the first and only time I've ever done that. Let's just say she bled me dry and leave it at that. It's just ironic to be on the receiving end of a card following that experience, especially an Amex Black."

Rose winked at me and smiled. "Well, I certainly hope she got what she deserved in the end."

I smirked back and offered a wink of my own. "That remains to be seen," I said. "I suppose that time will tell."

 **O-O-O**

Later that morning, Penny and I got into a BMW SUV that Rose had provided her for errands, and drove me back to my car in the Chancery parking lot. I sat up front, and she spent the entire drive fondling me, apparently without noticing it. It was a rather unique and unexpected experience. Rose wasn't kidding when she said that Penny would be seeing to literally all my needs.

Once back at my car, Penny followed me to my home and assisted me in gathering up my computer equipment, helping get my cats into their carriers, and packing some essentials for me, including some clothing, which I would apparently need until Rose could get around to getting me more presentable (read: expensive) clothes to wear. When we were finished, I followed her back to the penthouse.

The next few weeks were quite exhilarating and fun, as Rose had Penny join us in bed several times, as well as hosted several parties, which were well attended by local and international celebrities and politicians, each expertly catered. I found myself inexplicably holding my own in discussions about politics with actual policy markers; it was a subject I had been hotly interested in since I was a teenager, but one whose complexities had always escaped me. I found information on statistics, political tactics, and policy coming to me, literally rolling off my tongue as though it had materialized out of nowhere. This suggested to me that Rose had been programming me for the discussions, possibly even programming both sides of the conversations, but how and when she was doing this was a complete mystery to me, as I did not notice that I had been "losing time" since I had moved in with her. I supposed it was possible that in her sessions with me, that she had programmed me not to notice. Still, it was a thrill to catch a Senator with a particularly subtle point of logic. I equated the experience to walking onstage at a concert, picking up a guitar, and playing like Jimi Hendrix for two hours, then walking offstage before even realizing that I'd never had a lesson in my life.

During this time, word came back that my condo had been sold. Despite the fact that we were still barely recovering from The Great Recession, and there was a depressed market stemming from the housing crisis, my condo sold for over three times what I paid for it, and the buyers loved the furnishings so much that they requested to buy them for an additional $100,000, easily five times what they had been worth brand new. Just to see what happened, I told them I was waiting for a better deal, and they immediately tacked an additional quarter million to their original offer. The take was over a million dollars, all mine. Add to that the fact that I was still making almost $30,000 a year from the Federal Government, plus all my expenses were being paid for by Rose, or going on her credit card, and I was now independently wealthy. I jumped at the opportunity, and we closed two weeks later. The only things I required were my anime and movie collection, my $6500 LifeFitness T9i commercial-grade treadmill, and the framed photographs that I had taken that adorned my walls. I let go of my old life and put myself entirely in Rose's hands. Everything else that I had salvaged from my old condo went into my man-cave, which was my true home inside the opulence and prestige of Rose's penthouse.

Approximately a month after I'd moved in, I received a call from Rose late in the evening; she was working late, and Penny was servicing one of my "needs" when the call came in.

"Marcus, I need you to come to 3032 South 9th Place. Have Penny drive you," her voice was calm and cool. She was always assertive yet accommodating, but there was an edge to her voice tonight. She was giving me an order, and it almost sounded as though she were angry. She was a different person.

Worst of all, I knew that tone of voice. I knew it well. It was the voice of The Killer, the persona she wore when she was judging and murdering people.

"I'll come at once," I said, gently tugging at Penny's hair as I swept my legs off the bed and planted my feet onto the hardwood floor. In less than five minutes, Penny and I were both dressed and out the door.

The house in question was a run down twin in South Milwaukee, eerily close to the house that Delilah had technically been living in back in 2003, while she spent most of her nights with me. I left Penny at the curb in the SUV, and walked up the path, ringing the doorbell.

"It's open," I could hear Rose's voice clearly through the door, which I opened, then stepped inside.

A man was seated at the couch, and Rose – or rather The Killer – was standing several feet away from him. "Marcus, he's been implanted with triggers and is pliant, but I want you to perform an induction him. It's your turn."

I was shocked and incredulous. "Perform an induction on him? But I don't know how to induce anyone. I've never been trained in hypnosis."

"Yes, you have. Now induce him," The Killer was all business with me.

I sighed. "Stand up," I said to the man. He did.

"Pleased to meet you," I said, holding out my hand. "You are?"

"I'm Burt Stevens," he said, holding out his hand. Just as he went to shake mine, I swept my thumb across his palm and grasped his hand firmly and with assurance, and spoke with confidence and a controlled tone, finally telling him to fall into a deep sleep as his palm touched his forehead. He sagged and closed his eyes, but did not fall over.

"How did I do that?" I asked. "And what do I call you when you're like this? Rose? Delilah? Rosemary? The Ubermensch?"

"You've been practicing on Penny for nearly a month, under my direction, and you know who I am right now," she said.

"Very well," I said. "The Killer, then. What now?"

"Find his ruin," she said simply. "Just as I did to you years ago."

I knew exactly how to start, having remembered much of our early sessions, at least the salient points. "Mr. Stevens… Burt. You trust me completely; I am your best friend, someone you have known all your life. You feel comfortable telling me anything about yourself, and it is your greatest wish to tell me your innermost and darkest secrets. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he said simply, a soft smile playing at his lips.

"Burt, we're going to play a little game. It's called, 'What's My Darkest Secret?'" I said.

"Okay," he said with enthusiasm. "You go first."

I stifled a laugh; I'd said the exact same thing to Delilah. "No, no. You're new to this game, and the rule is that newcomers to the game always have to go first. Please sit down."

"Alright," he said, disappointed, and settled back down onto the couch, his eyes still closed. I took up a seat to his right, and The Killer sat down on the loveseat. There was apparently no one else home at the moment, or else The Killer had dealt with them already and was keeping them quiet and out of sight.

"Now the way we play the game is, whosever turn it is has to tell the other person the most terrible thing they've ever done that has harmed another person. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Alright, then. Let's hear it."

Burt took a deep breath. "Well, I was six years old, and my parents would frequently leave me at home to take care of my baby sister, who was just a few months old herself. Sometimes they'd be gone for hours and hours. They'd leave her in her crib, and I started playing a game with her where I'd put a plastic dry cleaning bag over her head and watch her whole head turn purple. Then I'd take it off and watch it go back to normal. I did this for months, whenever they were out of the house. One day, I left the bag on too long, and she never turned back. She died." His voice was happy, whether happy to be telling this to someone for the first time and getting it off his chest, or because he genuinely enjoyed what he had done, I could not tell. "I can't believe I just told someone that," he practically exclaimed. "I swore I would take that secret to the grave."

The Killer was turning a little purple herself; her rage was showing. "Now you get to judge him," she said to me.

"It's your turn," Burt said.

I induced Burt to go deeper, and to be silent. The game was over.

"What do you mean 'judge him'?" I asked.

"He's going to die. You're going to decide how that's going to happen," The Killer said.

I closed my eyes, willing myself not to lose my temper. I had always known, in all the time we had been back together, that this was part of who she was, and I had forced myself to be okay with it – she was, to all intents and purposes, the God of a new world, after all – but now she not only wanted me to be an accomplice, she wanted me to be responsible for taking life itself. While it was true that I felt a rush of power in what I was doing, as evidenced by the lump in my pants, and the infinite canvas of the human mind laid before me, ready for me to apply a brush of my own desires to it and paint myself a picture limited only by my imagination, the idea of taking life was still odious to me.

"Rose, he made a _mistake_ when he was a _child._ "

"Listen to him! He's proud of it! And don't call me Rose. You know what to call me."

"Okay, then, Kira-"

" _Don't_ call me 'Kira'. You're not Japanese."

"Sorry," I said. "I thought it would be cute."

"This is work, Marcus. There is no place for cute in this room."

"Then I just have to call you _The_ Killer all the time, regardless of the context?" I almost snapped at her.

"'Killer' will do in a pinch," she said.

"Very well, then, Killer," I amended, "when I admitted to you that I molested that infant when I was a boy, In my mind, I was still trying to seduce you; I actually thought your gasp of horror was a moan of pleasure, and I played into that in my descriptions to you, thinking you actually were turned on by hearing the story. I was always horrified by that event, and always regretted it from the moment I did it, but the way I expressed it to you was as if I was telling a witty, seductive tale. How do you know that he doesn't feel the exact same way?"

The Killer turned to face Burt. "Burt, how did you feel when you'd realized that you'd killed your sister?" she asked.

"I was mortified," he said. "I cried myself to sleep for months. And I was always terrified someone would find out, or that God would punish me for what I did."

"And how do you feel about it now?" she asked.

"Honestly?" he said, "I fantasize about it. I sometimes masturbate while thinking about it. It's a real turn-on. I actually killed someone!"

"There," The Killer spat at me. "There's your monster. That's what he grew up to be. He has no remorse. He was more frightened of getting caught when he was a child than anything, and now he glories in it. _That_ is why he has to die. Your problem is that you're too compassionate."

"And I've always thought that your problem was that you've been so steeped in human ugliness for so long that you've lost empathy and compassion," I said back to her with an edge in my voice.

"Not entirely," she said. "I chose you, didn't I?"

"Yes, but you tortured me," I said. "For years you tormented me and tortured me. I forgave all of it, and hold no malice against you for it, but it still happened. You say you love me, but you made me suffer immeasurably for a very long time. What informs that decision? What justifies those actions?"

"You're questioning me?" she demanded.

"It's more rhetorical than anything," I said. "But I think it's a conversation we eventually need to have. I told you, I hold no malice or grudge for it, but I've always wondered what the purpose for all that was, especially making me eat my own shit. It made no sense."

The Killer sighed. "I found something about the Universe from you, Marcus, the secret of the Subconscious mind. Add to that the fact that you beat the odds. You should have grown up to become a serial killer or a ravening molester of children, but you didn't. There was a spark inside of you, a spark of good that refused to die. I wanted to nurture that. You believed yourself to be a good person, but you were only fair to middling. I needed you to suffer because you needed to understand suffering, so you could see it in others, and be moved to help other people. You grew up white, privileged, and relatively rich. I needed to take all that and more away from you, to make you a better person than you were, to make you the best person you could be to prepare you for the task ahead, the task that I had in mind. That mission starts tonight."

"So you gave me that compassion, and now you denigrate me for it?" I asked.

"It's not the compassion I have a problem with, Marcus. It's that the compassion is misplaced. There is a child that never grew up because of this man. There must be a reckoning for that. There is a bigger picture here."

"Maybe I just see a different bigger picture than you do," I said, then turned to my left. "Burt, do you have a family?"

"Yes," he said. "A wife, Melissa, and three children. Two girls and a boy. Cora is nine, Allie is seven, and Rory is four."

I turned back to The Killer. "What 'greater good' does it serve to take this man away from his wife and children?" I asked. "He's never going to do it again."

"And I say he still dies," she said. "My word is law, Marcus. I am the God of this world. Now, how are you going to do it?"

I closed my eyes. I could disagree with her all night long, but she was right, and there was nothing I could do about it. I opened my eyes again and looked at her. "With compassion," I said. "He's going to take out a five million dollar term life insurance policy on himself, and two years or however long later, when the suicide clause kicks in and covers death by his own hand, he's going to die from an opiod overdose, painlessly."

She sighed. "We need to work on your irony," she said simply. "I'll make the arrangements. You may leave and go back to the Penthouse."

I stood up and headed toward the door. With my hand on the handle, I stopped. "I'm sorry that we fought, Killer."

"We don't have those kind of conversations when we're working," she said. "If you want to talk about it, reference it obliquely afterward. But for what it's worth, I'm not angry with you; this is all a part of the process, and one that I foresaw years ago. I guess I'm just not very patient."

"Killer, if there's anything I've learned about you, it's that patience is one thing you have in abundance." With that, I exited the house and got back in the SUV.

Penny, who was still waiting curbside, drove me home, and we took the private elevator up from the garage and back to the penthouse. Penny asked me if there was anything that I needed, and reminded me that we still had unfinished business in the bedroom. I told her that I wasn't in the mood at the moment, but thanked her anyway. I told her that instead I'd like to wait until the mistress came home, and be ready to give her my full attention.

As I sat, playing World of Warcraft and indulging my need to reach out to other people, I stared occasionally at the chain tattoo on my left wrist, the primary symbol of my lifelong enslavement; it was one of nearly a half a dozen slave tattoos I bore at her whim. I wondered if any or all of what had gone on tonight had been pre-scripted for my benefit, possibly even years ago. Certainly the proximity of Burt's home to where Delilah had lived – less than a block away – implied that, but one could never be sure. Still, another thing I had learned about Delilah and The Killer was that there were no such things as coincidences where she was concerned.

Rose came home two hours later, looking pooped. "You wouldn't believe the day I've had," she said, putting down her briefcase. I drew her a bath, and washed her lovingly as she soaked in the Jacuzzi jets. When she was done, she stood up as the tub drained, and I rinsed the suds off of her with the hose wand, then dried her, and took her to bed.

Our lovemaking that night was powerful and angry, full of rage and passion. It was as though we were working through our argument with our bodies, even wrestling and fighting at times, and it was the most sexually fulfilling thing I had ever experienced.

When it was over, and we lay sweating against the $2500 sheets on her king sized platform bed, Rose rolled away from me and onto her back. "I want you to know that I'm very proud of you, Marcus. You took a necessary first step tonight."

"Was this always your intention?" I asked. "Did you always plan for me to do this?"

"Do you remember what you said to me during our so-called 'first meeting' back at the Park & Ride, when I went to induce you and asked you which you would rather be after all your reading of mind control erotica, the master or the slave?"

"Of course I remember," I said. "I remember everything, now, except for what you still have blocked out of my memory. I said that while it might be fun to be a slave to a benevolent master, the controller was definitely the one to be."

"Well," she said. "I've given you both. You get to be a controller, and be a slave to a benevolent master."

"The best of both worlds," I said. "Child's play for you."

"You do realize that you forgave me because I made you forgive me, don't you?"

I rolled onto my side and turned to look at her seriously. She turned her head to look into my eyes. "First of all, none of that matters to me, because secondly, I believe that even left to my own devices, I would still have forgiven you. I always lusted after this power and my worship of you and your abilities covers a multitude of sins. I know that even if I hadn't forgiven you before, I certainly would have forgiven you by now, especially having heard your explanation for the need for me to suffer."

"Well, I'm glad to hear you say that," Rose said, stroking my cheek.

"Still, I have to wonder, are even these words I'm speaking to you pre-scripted? Is literally everything I'm doing at your command, every minute of every day?"

She winked at me again. "I'm afraid that's something you will never, ever know. If that were true and I told you, it might ruin the experience. You'll just have to wonder."

I sighed happily, then placed my CPAP mask over my face and turned the machine on. Then I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

That night, I dreamed of the evening Delilah – in the role of the Ubermensch – took me into the Holy of Holies and revealed her true nature to me for the first time. It was a powerful and terrifying experience, and it was no less so in my dream. When I awoke with a start, I reached out and embraced Rose in her sleep. It occurred to me that since we had gotten back together that she had shown me Rose, even The Killer, but since that day, she had never taken off all her masks and shown me The Ubermensch again. She was still wearing masks with me, and that was a profoundly troubling thing. I began to wonder when the face of the Ubermensch might again assail me, that creature who stood in the Holy of Holies and could only stand in sunlight – the shadows must never touch her feet. I wondered what that being's true motives and agenda might be, and this was frightening to me, that beyond all the masks, there might be more – an evil intent – to the wonder and joy I was experiencing. That there might be a bad, sticky end to this after all.

"And so it goes, and so it goes," I sang as a gentle lullaby to the incredible woman lying next to me over the hum of my CPAP, and wondered who she truly was.

"And you're the only one who knows," I sang, and drifted back to sleep.

* * *

 **(Author's Note: For the first time in over six weeks, I have written two stories in one day, and at over twice the length of the tales I have been writing over the last three months. I must really be motivated to tell this story. I am finding this tale, while generally conforming to the format and outline I had originally envisioned for it when I conceived of it as a 2-3 chapter story, is going to places I find completely unexpected. I find it delightful that even after all the work I've done, my own creative process still has the capacity to surprise me. I am delighted in the direction and with the way that this story is going, and intend to push through until this tale is told. If I can keep coming up with plot elements and story, this work could be six, even ten chapters long, maybe even longer than that. I have to think about what I want to say with this story, and give it as much thought as possible. To be honest, since I started writing it this morning, I have had trouble thinking about anything else.)**


	3. Well Done Thou Good And Faithful Servant

**.  
Tales of the Ubermensch:  
The Sorceress's Apprentice  
Chapter 3: Well Done, Thou Good And Faithful Servant  
By Gamera Obscura**

* * *

 **[Trigger Warning: This chapter deals with a serial killer, and contains mentions of childhood rape, adult forcible rape, domestic violence, and incest, as well as brief mention of cutting/minor mutilation.]**

* * *

 **BOB: Are you saying I won't have any character unless I do something I regret?**

 **PHIL: No, Bob... I'm saying you've already done plenty of things to regret. You just don't know what they are. It's when you discover them - when you see the folly in something you've done, and you wish that you had it to do over, but you know you can't, because it's too late. So you pick that thing up and carry it with you to remind yourself that life goes on, the world will spin without you – you really don't matter in the end. Then you will attain character, because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself all across your face.**

 **-Peter Facinelli and Danny DiVito in the film "The Big Kahuna" –  
As quoted in _Tales of the Ubermensch: Hack dot World_**

* * *

A year passed.

It was August 12th, 2012, and I was sitting in a living room just outside of Bozeman, Montana.

I was 41 years old, and the last year had been the happiest and most fulfilling of my life. I had traveled the world, judging people and training with The Killer, learning to punish wrongdoers with savage irony. She had done most of the heavy lifting, as I would make decisions, and she would take it upon herself to make arrangements for my judgments to be carried out.

Tonight was special, though. Tonight, for the first time, I had been sent to do my job alone.

Flying solo, I realized very quickly that I had been given a rather juicy subject to deal with: a serial killer who had murdered nineteen women. The Workers had just identified him, as he was recently inducted into the human hive a week before; he was a straggler, which was unusual for the northwestern hemisphere. It took so long to get to him because the man in question, Rickard Harris, age 47, was a loner with no friends.

I worked with him, delving into his mind to glean his secrets. This man was the lowest form of life I had ever personally encountered, but I was more concerned about the safety of the woman tied up in the basement of his house. He had fed her small doses of slow poison, and her organs had already started failing. There was literally no saving her; she had an incredibly painful and terrifyingly slow death awaiting her as her blood became increasingly toxic and the pain from her dead organs began to manifest itself. When I had confirmed this, I left him in hypnogogic paralysis on his sofa in the living room, and headed downstairs.

Betty Simonson, age 23, gasped as I lifted the blindfold from her eyes, hoping for a moment that she had been saved. I triggered her into a suggestible state and told her that I loved her. I told her that she should never forget that she was loved, and that she would be avenged. She began to cry, despite her psychic state.

"Betty, I want you to trust me," I said, "so you do. You trust me. You trust and believe everything I say without question. Do you believe me? Do you trust me?"

"Yes," she said between sobs.

"Betty, tell me about yourself," I said. It was an order, not a request. And she did, spinning a tale of a young woman repeatedly raped as a child by her father, until her mother caught them together at the age of eleven. The man went to prison, and died there, but the damage was done. Her life was shattered. She had dropped out of high school at age sixteen, and was working as a night waitress in a Waffle House in Peachtree City, Georgia when Rickard found her and kidnapped her. He tied her up in the back of his cargo van and drove her all the way to Montana with a sheet over her. He had raped and tortured her over the past three weeks, as the scabs on her arms and legs bore testimony to, and she was naked and shivering in the light of the bare light bulb in her own little corner of the basement.

"Betty," I said with sympathy, "I'm sorry to say that you're going to die. There's nothing I or anyone in the world can do to stop it; the process has already begun, but I am going to help you through this, and I promise that your death will be the last at the hands of this monster. He's killed nineteen women already. You will be his twentieth and final victim."

Betty was weeping freely now.

I looked deeply into her eyes. "Now that you understand that, I have one question for you. If you could have anything right now, what would it be?"

Her answer was instantaneous. "I want to talk to my ma, one last time."

"What's her full name, and where does she live?"

"Susan Mary Simonson, Macon, Georgia."

I ordered her to be silent, and the weeping stopped. I pulled out my cell phone and called Penny. Even after a year, I still didn't understand how half the screwy voodoo that The Ubermensch had set up worked, but I'd learned a few tricks, courtesy of Rose, or at least The Killer.

Penny answered the phone. "Control," she said.

"This is Two," I said. "I need a 416 on a Susan Mary Simonson, mother of Betty Simonson, age 23. The 416 is in Macon, Georgia. I also need a cell phone number and a trigger to guarantee an answer. Then I need a 908 on any calls made to her cell phone over the next hour."

"Understood," Penny said. "Expect a text within the next five minutes."

"Thanks, hon," I said, and hung up.

Three minutes later, I received five text messages, with a full hypnotic dossier on Betty's mother, followed by a cell phone number. I memorized the hypnotic triggers instantly, and dialed the number.

"Hello?" said a worried-sounding woman. It was after 11PM on the east coast, and a late night call to a woman whose daughter was missing for three weeks could mean good news or bad.

"Susan Simonson?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "Is this about Betty?"

I spoke a trigger phrase to put her into the state I needed. "Are you alone?" I asked.

"I am," she said.

"Good," I replied. "You're about to have a telephone conversation with your daughter. It will be the last time you ever speak to her. When the conversation is over, you will always remember every word of what was said, but you will not be able to tell anyone about it or act as though you are affected by the call in any way. As far as everyone else is concerned, it will be your private, secret memory, and no one must ever know. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," she said simply.

I spoke another trigger, bringing her to a waking state, and then placed the Samsung on speakerphone. "Betty," I said, "say hello to your mother."

The call lasted for over an hour, and was full or crying, apologies, and ruminations on both sides. I will not relate them here, because the last words of a dying woman to her mother are, quite frankly, none of your fucking business.

I will say that the final moments of the call, however, were devastating between the pair, and even I was in tears by the time it was over. I hung up the phone, and went back to programming Betty.

"Betty," I said, "from this moment on, and for the rest of your life, you will not know fear, or pain. You will be completely impervious to them. Nothing he does to you will hurt, and you will not be afraid of him or anything else, including your death. You will be confident and assertive. I am going to force him to make a mistake in disposing of your body that will guarantee that he will get caught. Your death will be the catalyst that leads to his arrest and execution."

"I understand," she said, no longer crying. I wiped her eyes. She looked twelve shades better already.

"Now," I continued, "when I return, he will be with me, and while you will be able to see me, he will not. It will be our own little private joke. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," she said, a wry smile on her face. "Fucker's gonna get what he deserves."

"That's right," I said. "Now, I have to leave you for a while. I'm going to tell him what he's going to do wrong."

"Could I ask just one more favor of you?" Betty asked.

"Of course, my dear. What do you need?" I said.

"Would you give me a hug? I really could use a tender touch right now."

"Ohhh," I moaned sympathetically, and wrapped my arms around her bare shoulders and chest, and gave her a tight squeeze. The Killer had done the same thing to me one of the "first nights" we had met, when she first told me she loved me, and I too had been unable to move in that moment, but it was everything I needed, as she told me she was going to make me suffer, but it would all be worthwhile in the end. I had been afraid, but happy that someone with such power loved me.

I released her after ten or fifteen seconds. "Better?" I asked, and caressed her face gently with the palm of my hand.

"Better," she nodded.

"Okay," I said, kissing her tenderly on the top of her head. "I'll be back soon."

"Wait," she ordered, and I stopped in mid-step and turned around. "What's your name?"

I smiled at her sadly. "Marcus," I said. "Marcus Jones."

She smiled back. "Marcus. I like that name," she told me. "Thank you for helping me, Marcus."

I nodded, but did not speak, and continued up the stairs.

Once back in the living room, it was time to deal with Rickard, with his rank smell and greasy hair. He didn't bathe, either, and reminded me of myself before Rose had come – or at least come back – into my life.

My face was twisted into a mask of rage, until I reminded myself that had it not been for my Subconscious mind, an entity that kept me rooted in morality, resurrecting itself from the dead following the molestation, I might have turned out exactly like this man. This was a man without a living Subconscious. He was a psychopath, and had no conscience. No sense of morality or ethics. He had only his work, and that work was to rape, torture, and murder women.

His house was filthy, and so was he, in more ways than one.

I told him that when his latest victim died, he would dump her, face up, in a place where she would be discovered within a matter of hours, but before that, after she was dead, he would touch her face with his ungloved hand, and be sure to leave a partial fingerprint upon her right eyeball without noticing he was doing it. That would lead the FBI straight to his doorstep, and he would be arrested in a matter of a couple of days after they discovered the print, long before he had time to pick a new victim.

Once captured, he would confess to all his murders, and lead the police to all the bodies yet to be unearthed. He would spend three years in prison, being raped and beaten every single day before finally being murdered by other prisoners. The Killer had made it clear to me that every victim of her wrath, without exception, had to die by mid-summer, 2016. I was guessing that this was when she planned to change the world, when she would finally take over, following the subjugation of every last human on earth over the age of six.

I told him that when I snapped my fingers, he would fully awaken, and go and see to his victim, but he would not be able to see or hear me. I snapped my fingers, and he opened his eyes, stood up, and headed for the basement. I followed him down, and he approached Betty, who began to laugh at him.

"What's so funny, whore?" he demanded.

"You're done," she said. "You're going to fuck up, and then it's all going to be over for you."

He swung his arm and slapped her hard in the face. She laughed again, as though she hadn't even felt the blow. "It's all over for you, you filthy piece of shit. You're already dead, and you don't even know it."

"I could say the same to you," he told her angrily.

"I know that, and I don't care. What happens to me doesn't matter," Betty said. "What matters is that you're going to get what you deserve. It's you that's going to suffer and die, and good riddance."

Rickard started undoing his belt, and Betty began to laugh uproariously, and winked at me before turning back to him. "That's right, let's see that tiny little dick of yours."

I smirked as I climbed the stairs. As Rickard began to do his worst, Betty's laughter continued. It was a shame that she was going to die, but she would be alright; it had already been arranged.

 **O-O-O**

Now, ordinarily, I would have tried to fly straight back home following an assignment, as Rose and I almost always did when The Killer and I worked together, but it was already approaching midnight, and the first flight out was at 4AM. Rose had insisted that I spend the night, booked a suite at the Bozeman Hilton for me, and told me to take a late morning or early afternoon flight out at my discretion. She also told me not to be shy in indulging myself at the minibar.

I had been in my room, naked on the bed and watching the news, for half an hour when there was a knock at the door. I put on one of the suite's white terrycloth robes and answered it.

Hayden Panettiere was standing in the hallway.

Now, I'd never been a huge fan of _Heroes_ , but I'd seen a few episodes, and was rather smitten with the Cheerleader. She was standing on the other side of the door wearing a black trench coat and carrying a Louis Vuitton bag. "Marcus Jones?" she asked.

"That's me," I answered, confused. Rose was obviously up to something.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" she said.

I stammered an apology of sorts and opened the door wide, stepping back to allow her entry to the suite. Then I closed and locked the door behind her. "What are you doing in Bozeman?" I asked.

She laughed. "My boyfriend and manager think I'm in Seattle on an audition for an indie film tomorrow morning," she said. "I've been sent for you. She wants to reward you for a job well done."

Whenever people under Rose's control spoke to me and referred to her, it was always as "she", as if there was no other logical way of mentioning her.

Hayden shrugged out of her trench coat and let it fall to the floor. Underneath, she was wearing her red and white cheerleading outfit from the show.

"She doesn't fuck around, does she?" I asked Hayden.

She smiled as she turned around, and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me sweetly. "No," she said, "she doesn't. But I do. From now on, any woman or man you desire is yours as you wish. All you have to do is ask."

That night was unlike anything I have ever experienced before. As we made love, I began to make a list of the women I wanted. Even after a year of living the fantasy and tasting the power that came with being with Rose, she still managed to find ways to surprise me. Penny, I had later found out, had been a Penthouse Pet of the Year in 2008, and with her flaming red hair and six foot height, she had been handpicked by Rose as a woman I would desire greatly. Now she was throwing celebrities at me. What would come next?

Still, Rose had taken pains to ensure that the most fulfilling sex I ever had was with her. She was a God, but she was a jealous God, at least insofar as she wanted to be the best at everything she did, so she made sure that while I was satisfied and thrilled at every step, no one could quite measure up to her.

Similarly, she knew that I had always striven to be the best my partners had ever experienced; I wanted to make sure that no other man could compare to me and my magical touch, and so Rose had made that a reality as well. Hayden was well satisfied by the time we finished at four in the morning, and she wasn't shy in telling me so, informing me that I was hands down the best she'd ever had, or would likely ever know for the rest of her life. The words, like the words of love I had manipulated women into telling me in my younger days, before Delilah, were like a balm for my soul.

 **O-O-O**

The following morning, Hayden and I had breakfast at the hotel's restaurant and laughed over the events of the previous night. Several people came up and asked for her autograph, but she demurred, denying her identity and saying that she merely bore a striking resemblance to the television star.

After our meal was done, she kissed me on the cheek and bade me farewell, telling me that it was a night she would never forget, before taking a cab to the airport and leaving me to head back upstairs and pack. Once I was mostly packed, I showered and brushed my teeth, as I once again did every day, thanks to the directives and potentials unlocked by Rose. For over a year, I had been my old self again when it came to hygiene and appearance, but I was a new man in virtually every other respect.

I flew back to Milwaukee early in the afternoon and arrived in the evening. Penny picked me up at Mitchell Field and drove me back to the penthouse. As we exited the private elevator that opened directly into the unit, there was a loud thrumming outside, and I could see Rose exiting a sleek black helicopter on the helipad outside on the terrace. She joined us inside as a man brought her bags in and then got back aboard. The helicopter then took off and headed south.

Rose came up to me with a smile as Penny took her bags into the master suite to unpack them. She then pulled me down and into a kiss. "Well done," she said. "I'm very proud of you. I hope you enjoyed your present afterward, as well."

"Thank you," I said with a smile. "I did."

"The telephone call to her mother was a nice touch, by the way. I probably wouldn't have gone so far," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

"So I assume that means you checked my work," I said. I wasn't really surprised.

"Of course," she told me. "I probably always will."

"That's fine," I replied. "I don't mind being supervised, as long as it means I get to continue working. Did you listen to the phone call?"

"The NSA sent me an MP3 of it," Rose said. "It was very touching."

"The NSA?" I asked, confused. "I ordered a 908 on the call."

She smiled. "A 908 is only subject to records of the call, to keep them out of the hands of law enforcement and avoid anomalies we have to clean up later. The calls are still recorded by the NSA and flagged special and Top Secret, in case I need to recover them later."

I closed my eyes and sighed, but with a soft smile on my face. The intricacies of her system were almost too much for me to comprehend, despite my enhanced intellect.

"I could use a good steak," I said. "I didn't eat dinner last night, and breakfast at the hotel wasn't that great."

"Do you want to go to Mo's?" Rose asked. "We could walk."

I smiled again. "I'd like that. We haven't been there in months, and I wouldn't mind stretching my legs after four hours on planes. We need a private jet."

"We have one," Rose said with a wink.

"We do?" I asked.

"Yes, we do. I use it sometimes, but not all the time. You'll see it; actually, you're going to see it very soon. We have a special job tomorrow. We're going to West Virginia."

"What's in West Virginia?" I asked.

"Someone I want you to meet."

 **O-O-O**

I couldn't help but laugh when we got to the restaurant, as Tori Amos was sitting at the baby grand, playing and singing for our entertainment, as well as that of the entire restaurant, during our meal. No one else seemed to notice who she was.

We stopped eating and turned towards the piano as she played "Me and a Gun", and afterwards I turned to Rose and asked her if she ever found and punished the man who had raped Tori, as described in the song.

"Of course," she said. "That was a very early judgment, back in the late 1990s."

"Does she know?" I asked her.

"Yes, she does. She always feels the thrill of revenge when she sings that song." Rose raised her glass to Tori, who was staring at our table between songs. Tori raised the glass of red wine she had sitting on top of the piano to Rose and smiled, then took a sip before beginning her next song.

We went back to our food. After a few moments, Rose looked up at me. "Do you want her?"

I shook my head. "No. Or at least not tonight."

"Why not?" Rose asked. "Don't you find her attractive?"

"Of course I do," I said, "although she was never really my type; still, that's not the reason, either. I just had my first solo mission, and my first celebrity. Part of it is that I need to process both of those experiences before I jump into becoming a full-time starfucker, but the biggest part of it is that after all that, I feel I need to be alone with you tonight. No Tori, no Penny. Just you and me."

Rose smiled and took a sip of her Bordeaux. "Good answer," she said.

I winked. "I thought you'd appreciate that."

Our night of lovemaking was full of passionate exploration, and while Rose was usually obsessed with fulfilling my needs, finding that her own pleasure was assured just from giving me what I wanted, instead I made this night about her and her alone. I suppose, in a way, it was my way of rewarding her for showing enough trust in me to allow me to deal with an insanely dangerous man, and to do it in my own way. We finally collapsed in a heap at 2AM, and I asked her when we were due to leave in the morning.

Rose told me that since it was a private plane, we could leave literally any time we wanted; I asked if she wanted to go for another round, and she replied that she was feeling a bit tired, and that we should probably get some rest for the ordeal ahead. I slipped my CPAP mask over my face and turned it on, quickly falling asleep as our sweat cooled in the breeze of the ceiling fan over the bed.

 **O-O-O**

The following day, late in the morning, a helicopter came and flew us to Mitchell Field, whereupon we entered hangar twelve and boarded a Lear jet bound for Hagerstown Regional Airport on the eastern border of West Virginia, just a mile or two from Maryland. The local Enterprise rental car service had a Honda waiting out front for us, and we took it the ten mile journey to Falling Water, right on the Potomac River.

The house was a modest yellow Victorian with white trim, easily over a century old, with a tower in the front corner, the peak of which was covered with cedar tiles. We stepped up to the wraparound porch, and Rose rang the doorbell. "After the pleasantries, take her down," she said.

"So this is a judgment?" I asked as we waited for the door to be answered.

"More or less," Rose said as the door opened.

A black and iron-haired Caucasian women in her mid-fifties answered the door, and her face lit up when she saw Rose. "Rose, honey! It's so good to see you! Twice in as many days; what occasions the visit?"

Rose smiled sweetly. "I have someone I'd like you to meet."

The woman glanced at me with a kindly smile. "Please, both of you, come in, and we'll be well met inside," she said and ushered us in, closing the door behind us.

In the foyer, the woman embraced Rose warmly, then offered a hand to me. "I'm Alison Evans," she said. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mister…?"

"Jones, I said, "Marcus Jones." I held out my hand, and performed the Handshake Induction Method when she went to shake mine. Within five seconds, she was under my control. I ordered her to go into the living room and to sit down in her regular, most comfortable spot. The Killer and I followed her and took up seats around her.

After gaining her trust, The Killer ordered me to ask her about her background, which I did. What followed was a cringe worthy accounting of near constant molestation and rape as a child, as well as beatings, all by her father and uncle, neither of whom were ever caught or punished. Add to that a forcible rape at knifepoint while she was in college, and spousal abuse and domestic violence by her first husband, who was now dead. It read like a litany of abuse, and I was wincing at the thought of this poor, sweet woman undergoing such a terrible ordeal as she grew up. Her ruin must be grotesque, for The Killer to call me all the way out here to work with her. I surmised that this must be a special case.

"Tell us about your life now," The Killer said.

Alison told us of her life, of finding a second husband who was gentle and kind, who had adopted her daughter and had sired three more children with her, now mostly grown. She was gentle and kind and happy, at least according to her own admission.

"Now," The Killer said to me, "find her ruin."

I gave her the trust instructions one more time for good measure, and then played the Darkest Secret Game; I asked her, as I had asked so many people by now, to tell us the worst thing that she had ever done that had harmed another person.

Alison began in halting tones. She trusted me, that was mandatory, but she seemed not to know how to begin, as if telling this tale troubled her greatly.

"It was four and a half years ago. I came home from the Wal-Mart in Martinsburg, just a few miles up the road, and I realized that the cashier had given me twenty dollars more in change than I deserved. I wanted to go back, and they were open twenty-four hours, but it was late, and I was tired. The first thing in the morning, I went back and returned the money to customer service, but they told me that when the cashier's drawer came up short, they had fired her. She was a- she was a sweet young black girl, and I had seen her several times before. She was always nice to me, and I felt just terrible. If I hadn't been so lazy, she would still have her job, probably, and wouldn't have lost it on account of me."

I glanced at The Killer, dumbfounded, then turned back to Alison. "That is literally the worst thing you've ever done? In your entire life?"

"Yes, sir," she said. She looked as though she wanted to burst into tears. I calmed her down, and put her under, deeply, to keep her from interrupting. I turned back to The Killer. "That's amazing. Childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, incest, forcible rape, domestic violence, and that's all she's ever done."

"She's going to die," The Killer said. "Choose how, and make it brutal."

"What?" I asked, again dumbfounded.

"You heard me," The Killer said.

I could feel my ire rising. "Is that what you do? Just kill everyone you meet?"

"A woman lost her livelihood. Alison Evans is going to pay for that," The Killer said.

"Killer, she's _innocent._ She hasn't done anything wrong!"

"Marcus, I'm not going to repeat myself. Choose."

I thought for a long moment, thought of the most benevolent, most merciful death I could think of, but the thought outraged me. This woman deserved to be blessed, not punished. It was time to take a stand. "No," I said flatly.

"What did you say to me?" The Killer asked, turning on me with a stunned expression on her face.

"You heard me," I said. "I can't stop you from taking this woman's life, but I won't be a party to it."

The Killer's face began to color. "If you defy me, you'll lose everything you have. The penthouse, the Aston Martin, even the money from your closing and the houses that I've bought for your parents and step-parents. You'll have nothing, and you'll never wield this power again. I'll leave you back in the gutter where I found you, with nothing. I may even take away your memory of the last year. You won't even have the solace of remembering what you've done, everything I've taught you. And I'll strip away your potentials while I'm at it."

"My ruin was much worse than this woman's, and you let me live," I said.

"So far," she retorted angrily.

"You know," I said, "comments like that make it very hard to completely trust you, Killer."

"You were a special case, and you know full well why. I'm going to ask you one more time. This is your final chance. Choose." Her face was almost contorted with rage.

I closed my eyes. This was a heavy, heavy price. I could feel the weight of my decision crushing the life out of me, and I found it hard to breathe. For a moment, I almost relented. I couldn't bear to lose everything I'd built, but as they say, if it doesn't hurt, it's not the right decision.

"Then I guess I'd better get comfortable with living on the streets, because I'm not going to punish this woman. You get on with your ugly business if you must, but unless you force me, I will absolutely not help you."

The Killer closed her eyes and took a deep breath, holding it for a long moment before letting it out in a long, drawn-out sigh. Then she smiled at me. "Well done," she said.

I was stunned. "Well done? What do you mean?"

"I mean that when I discovered this woman yesterday, I knew that she needed to be blessed for her ability to contain the Virus within her. She never sinned, never harmed another. No molestation, no beatings, nothing," The Killer said. "She is pure. The purest victim of violence and abuse that I have ever found. She's one in a billion, at least. But I knew that I had to test you, to see which was more important to you, the power and trappings of wealth that you have gained, and having me in your life, or your own moral compass. I wanted to see if you would stand up to me, and you did."

I closed my eyes, dipping my head and placed my thumb and forefinger over the bridge of my nose, willing away the headache that was beginning there. When it was gone, I looked up again and turned back to The Killer. "And what would have happened if I had failed your test?"

Delilah's face was unreadable. "I would have been… disappointed."

I shuddered briefly, wondering just what disappointing her might bring with it. "So what happens now? You obviously didn't bring me down here just to see a woman whose only crime is the moral equivalent of jaywalking on a deserted country road."

"Now, you get to bless her. To do what you've always wanted to do with this power, Marcus, you get to help someone. Hopefully the first of many," The Killer said.

"Thank you, Rose," I said.

"That's not what you call me here," she said. "You know that."

"No," I said. "There is no place for The Killer in this room. Whoever else you may be, when you bless people, you are Rose."

She pondered that for a long moment. "Fair enough."

 _One in a billion,_ I thought. "Alison, what would you do with a billion dollars?"

Alison appeared to be taken back by the question. With her eyes still closed, she said, "Oh, my… I don't even know where I'd begin. I suppose I'd make sure all my friends and family were taken care of, and then I suppose I would use the money to help people however I could, starting with that woman whose job I cost."

I turned to Rose. "Can you arrange for her to win a billion dollar Powerball jackpot?" I asked.

"It shouldn't be too difficult," she said. "Some reprogramming to make sure that the numbers we choose for the drawings are never selected by the computer, and then we'll have to stage the drawings for several months. Shouldn't be too hard with CGI. Then we'd have to have her select the winning numbers when the jackpot reached its peak. It'll take some work, but it won't be a problem."

"Then that's precisely what we do. We transform her life, and give her the ability to transform the lives of others at her whim. She will get to live my dream, the dream of being a philanthropist."

"I'll have the Workers come up with a statistical analysis," Rose said. "We won't know what to program until we know specific numbers that are never played by players that choose their own digits. Once we have that analysis, I will either return to program her, or have the programming sent by the Workers."

Our work completed, Rose programmed Alison to wake up five minutes after we left, and not to remember any part of our visit, and to forget she had ever met Rose. We left her lovely home and got back in the Honda, taking it back to the airport, whereupon we boarded the Lear and headed back to Milwaukee.

On the way, we sipped our drinks and spoke at length about the things we might program Alison to do with the money. In time, Rose stood, hiked up her Versace skirt, and straddled me. We made love on the plane, sitting in my swivel chair as we flew at 35,000 feet. It was my first experience in the air, as I joined the so-called "Mile High Club", but it was far from my last.

When we were finished, and she lay panting against me in my chair, I whispered in her ear, "That woman is a miracle. She's one victim of the Virus that deserves to see your perfect world; and if she exists, there must be others. I want to find them. I want to help them all."

"I'll see to it that you do," Rose said sweetly, a soft smile upon her face.

"Also, I have a request," I said. "I want to free North Korea. Will you let me?"

She leaned back and looked into my eyes. "In time, I may allow that. We'll have to see."

"We need to stop fiddling around with child molesters and murderers and start dealing with despots and dictators, the true evil in this world, the ones who ruin the lives of millions, not dozens or individuals," I said in an attempt to persuade her.

"I said we'll see," she repeated. She placed the palm of her hand against my face and caressed it lovingly.

"You already have the means to do it," I said, leaning into her touch.

"I know," she told me. "But it isn't time for big moves yet. It's not safe."

I thought of the Workers, and the infrastructure she had created to manifest her will around the world, to prepare for the day when she began to alter the world as a whole. "I think it's time you showed me how the magic works," I said.

She smiled, and climbed off of me, returning to her chair. "You know, I've been having that exact same thought."

I zipped up my pants to hide my already stirring erection, thrilled at the thought that I might finally get to peek behind the curtain, as it were, and learn how the Workers got things done.

* * *

 **(Author's Note: This story continues to surprise and amaze me, and it's affecting my life in positive ways that I could not have foreseen. I have already had deep, philosophical discussions with my fiancée about it, and we have found that it has brought us together in many unexpected ways. I have plots for at least three more chapters, and may be able to come up with more as I write. I hope that you are enjoying my writing, dear reader, but I think perhaps the best is yet to come. For the record, the encounter with Alison was the one plot point that stuck in my mind as the inspiration for "Tales of the Ubermensch: The Sorceress's Apprentice". You might say it's the one thing that brought this tale to life, and has been percolating in my mind literally for years.)**


	4. Attend The Woman Behind The Curtain

**.  
Tales of the Ubermensch:  
The Sorceress's Apprentice  
Chapter 4: Attend The Woman Behind The Curtain  
By Gamera Obscura**

* * *

 **"And I see how the Hive works, now. The Queen sits at the top, and beneath her, unseen, are the Workers. Beneath them sit the Drones. You are a Thrall. You are a Drone. You are at the mercy of the Workers, who adjust your attitudes, who shape your opinions, who determine your actions. And I'm here to tell you that if and when you carry out one of their orders, for the most part, you will not even be aware that what you are doing is anyone's will but your own. Your mind will even undergo mental gymnastics to justify your attitude or actions. That's the way posthypnotic suggestion works. You may receive orders in an email or a text message, and then delete the evidence before being made to forget that anything was amiss."**

 **-Nada the Damned (Marcus Jones),** _ **Tales of the Ubermensch: Hack dot World**_

* * *

"If you don't stop pacing, you're going to wear grooves into the floor," Rose said.

I stopped the drumming of my feet upon the floor and threw myself into an easy chair in the Great Room of the penthouse in which we lived. Word had come back that our guests had landed in the Lear at Mitchell Field, and were currently shuttling in on a pair of helicopters. They would be here literally any minute.

"I'm just excited," I told her.

"I can see that," she said with a smile. "You've brought it up at least once a day since filming wrapped. You even agonized through the post-production process before deciding to have this party. It's going to be fine, Marcus. Everyone is going to love you, literally."

I laughed. "How is the entertainment?"

Rose grinned. "Penny is seeing to the strippers, making sure they're properly dressed and made up. Are you sure eight is enough?"

I smiled. "Two for each of the male guests. I'm sure it'll be fine." The ladies would be otherwise "entertained" by me.

The sound of approaching helicopters began to fill the room. Several minutes later, four people departed the first craft, which took off and headed back to the airport as the second came in for a landing. Once the second quartet had been deposited, the second helicopter followed the first, and all eight came inside from the terrace.

The guests were the main cast and a couple of supporting actors from the web series "The Guild", which was just starting to publish episodes for this, its sixth and final season. They were Felicia Day, a personal hero of mine, Sandeep Parikh, Vincent Caso, Jeff Lewis, Amy Okuda, and Robin Thorsen, with Wil Wheaton, who played Fawkes in Seasons three through five, and Michelle Boyd, who played Riley in Seasons two through four.

The guests fixed themselves plates from the caterer's buffet, and then all ten of us filed into the penthouse's million-dollar home theater, which was clad in mahogany and hardwoods from floor to ceiling, and Rose loaded the DVD that Felicia handed to her. Everyone settled in as the final season of the show began to play, complete with a brand new opening sequence, which was ironic, given the fact that it was unlikely that it would ever be used again. I sat in the center-front, in between Felicia and Rose.

Ninety minutes later, the program ended and the lights came up as Rose worked the large touchscreen remote, then placed it upon the table next to her leather reclining massage chair.

"A fine end to a remarkable series," I said to Felicia, who smiled and thanked me.

"Now," I announced, getting up and turning to face the audience, "if everyone will head back into the Great Room, we have more food, wine, spirits, and entertainment for everyone."

To the surprise of the men, the room was littered with the eight strippers we'd borrowed from Silk, the area's largest gentlemen's palace. A pair of them took up positions at either side of each of the men, and began to hang all over them. For hours, conversation and camaraderie ensued, as the rented women began to gradually lose their clothing. Music began to play, and they started a routine that ended up in an outright orgy with the men. I beckoned Felicia, Amy, Robin, and Nicole to join Rose and I in the bedroom, and as they had been programmed to, they readily agreed.

Most of the women that joined me in my bed that night were not strictly bisexual, but adjustments to their personalities had been made in advance to make them more amenable to the arrangement. Rose did not get into bed, opting instead to sit in an easy chair facing the platform sleeper to watch the festivities, which were long, inventive, and extremely delightful.

Following a session that lasted several hours, all nineteen of us went skinny dipping in the building's swimming pool, which had been closed for our party. Then we relaxed in the giant Jacuzzi tub constructed by the shallow end of the pool, while we enjoyed drinks and conversation. I tried to convince Felicia Day to consider continuing The Guild, but short of giving her an order, she felt that the show had run its course. She might consider writing and starring in a seventh season in several years, but with her responsibilities with her Geek & Sundry channel on Youtube, she was too busy to produce The Guild on a regular schedule.

I had found over the last sixteen months that forcing creativity out of someone resulted in less than ideal results, so I didn't ask Rose to make it an order, allowing instead for things to take their natural course.

While the men made their way to the various guest bedrooms, Rose slept in bed with my four companions. I'd never slept in a bed with five women at once before, and that night had been my first fivesome, in what had been over a year of firsts for me.

The next morning, after a grand breakfast prepared and served by Penny, the strippers departed, and a pair of helicopters returned to take our guests back to the airport

While Rose and I relaxed in the Great Room, Penny coordinated the removal of the previous night's food by the caterers, as well as the maid service that she had hired to clean up after the party. As I snoozed on the couch, I dreamt of Rose and I standing, hand in hand, on a dais at the center of an ocean of people, all knelt in worship. There was a microphone before us, and as I stepped up to it to address the crowd, I was awoken by the sound of the vacuum cleaner sucking up detritus from the area rug that ringed the conversation pit I had been sleeping in.

I awoke with a start; just before I stirred, as I made the way to the microphone in my dream, I thought I saw the people begin to rise, and was somehow sure that they would rush the dais, past Rose, and tear me limb from limb. Try as I might, and no matter how many celebrities, gifts, and unique experiences, sexual and otherwise, that she showered upon me, I still could not shake the feeling that she was going to turn things against me at a critical moment, and that I would die for it.

Rose smiled when she saw me stir; "Bad dreams?" she asked.

"Nothing I can't handle," I said. "Just more of the usual." It occurred to me that if she wanted to, she could make the bad dreams go away, but it was equally likely that she had programmed them into me, possibly as much as a decade before, as she had shown aptitude for programming dreams into me, most particularly nightmares, the first time we had dated.

That night, after a fine dinner of quail and asparagus, I decided to take a little time for myself and told Rose I was going for a drive. I took my silver Aston Martin convertible, which Rose had given me to drive, and took it out of the parking garage. First, I drove up Lake Michigan, heading north toward Whitefish Bay, and as the road was largely empty, I opened up the V-12 engine and took it up to 80, winding along the curves in the road as I worked out my frustration. Rose had almost been taunting me with hints that my every action was scripted and influenced by her. With incredulity, I realized that if I was so tightly controlled, that even my frustration was a part of her plan. That meant that all my agonizing and suffering over the years had not only been planned, but meticulously scripted, down to the tiniest thought.

As I headed south again, back along the lake and heading in the general direction of the airport, I thought of the question of free will versus determinism, and thought about how, if there was a God, or gods, that He, She, or They existed in a creation of predestination and fate, and that the every thought, word, and action of their creations were determined long before birth, otherwise prophecy would not be possible in those faiths. Was what I was undergoing any different?

As I got onto I-95 South, I thought of the nagging hints that she might actually be supernatural in nature. I had wrested with the inconsistencies in her plan for years, such as her ability to predict a blizzard in Milwaukee several years before it actually happened, but had always tried to explain it away by rational means. With no ability to detect lost time in my year with Rose, yet discovering evidence of extensive tampering with my thoughts and actions, the idea that she might somehow be truly more that a human being began to rear its ugly head again. I felt a stab of fear in my heart, a fear of the unknown, despite everything I had gained since Rose had come into my life.

I parked by the airport, and watched the planes take off and land for a while as I thought long and hard about these haunting topics. Back in the early days, when she had been programming me, Delilah, or The Killer, had told me on more than one occasion that she was Almighty God herself. What if that was true? I could feel my atheism falter, as there was no rational explanation for some of the things that I had experienced.

My life had taken one insane turn after another. First, I had been confronted by the absolute fact that my penniless ex-girlfriend ruled the world, and the idea that I was going to die, like Icarus, for flying too close to the sun that was her brilliance. I had made my peace with that fate just in time to come to the conclusion that it was probably a lie, but that had made things even more frightening. When your nemesis was as powerful as Delilah had been, literally, and I mean _literally_ anything was possible.

Then, at the height of my misery, enter Rose, who had taken all my pain away, and given me a life I could have only dreamed about. Less than twenty-four hours ago I had been involved in an orgy with half the cast of The Guild, and spent an evening trading quips with Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton. Less than a week before that, I had been in a foursome with Rose, Penny, and Emily Browning. If I wanted to have sex with, or even impregnate, anyone in the world, all I had to do was ask.

And now, here I was sitting in a $250,000 automobile on a joyride. Even my parents were living in mansions, complete with live-in staff, all thanks to Rose, everything paid for by her generosity.

Was the loss of my freedom, the inability to have even a single thought that was of my own choosing, such a high price to pay to live the kind of life I was receiving in return? And then I thought of The Killer's twisted sense of irony, and thought of the possibility that she could suddenly take everything away from me on a whim. Sure, I thought as I threw the car into drive and started down the road once more, things were good now, but what if that changed? What if it was always destined to change? What if Rose was merely toying with me? Just giving me what I wanted until I grew too used to it, grew to love it too much? And then she'd pull the carpet out from underneath my feet and leave me sprawling on my ass, as it were?

As I drove, I headed south again. I had decided to visit a familiar haunt; on the southern border of the airport's property was a lonely convenience store that sat in the middle of nowhere on a residential street. I had ended up there at four in the morning on the night of the final "first meeting" with Delilah, the only one she had never made me forget.

As I pulled up to it, there were only two other cars in the parking lot, which wasn't unusual; this was a sleepy little convenience store, and the road itself barely got any traffic. I pulled into the lot and parked closest to the door. I got out and stepped inside, deciding that I wanted both a Mountain Dew.

As I stepped up to the cooler with the Mountain Dews in it, I felt a chill go up and down my spine. There was a man, around thirty years old, leaning against the cooler, just as he had been doing nine years before. I was sure it was the same man, and he appeared to be wearing the same exact white button-down shirt and the exact same pair of pink women's panties that he had when I had come here with Delilah.

"Excuse me," I said, and he straightened up and began to march like an automaton down the aisle, just as he had on that fateful night so many years ago. When he reached the end, he took a right, then another quick right, and began to walk down the next aisle like a robot. I knew that he would do exactly as he had done before, circumnavigating every aisle in the store like he was a machine, completely unaware of his surroundings, until he had made a complete circuit, and then he would turn and walk out the door, his panties clearly visible beneath the bottom of his shirt.

I watched Panty Man intently as he completed his task, then left the store as I had anticipated. I turned back to the cooler and pulled out my bottle of soda, then a second one, and then decided I wanted a pack of cigarettes, my first in a year. I also bought a lighter, then went outside after paying for my purchases.

I unwrapped the box of cigarettes, and then managed to light the damned thing, despite my hands shaking. As I smoked outside the door of the store, a familiar, crimson Lamborghini pulled into the parking lot and parked next to my Aston Martin. I approached the car, and Rose lowered the window. "Get in," she said.

"I have a smoke," I said, holding up my hand so she could see. "I thought you didn't like anyone smoking in your Lam."

"Normally, I don't," she said. "Tonight, I'll make an exception."

I stepped around to the other side of the car and opened the door upwards before getting in. "I bought you a bottle of Mountain Dew, apparently," I said, offering her the bottle. She took it and spun off the cap before taking a swig. "Cigarette?" I asked.

"Please," she replied, and replaced the cap on her drink and putting it into her cup holder before taking the proffered smoke and allowing me to light it for her. We sat in silence for a couple of minutes.

Finally, I broke the silence. "I have a request," I said simply.

"What is it?" she asked.

"You already know what it is," I replied. "You know everything I'm going to do and say."

"I'm not going to make you stop caring that you're being controlled, Marcus," she said.

I sighed, and thought bitterly that even that sigh was a part of her plan. "Doesn't it get boring for you?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" she asked in return.

I barked a sardonic laugh. "Knowing what the man you say you love is going to do or say at any given time?"

She smiled. "It's kind of like reading a novel you've written yourself. How many times have you read your own book, Marcus? You knew every detail, knew how it was going to end, but you read it dozens of times. Yes, it was primarily for editing and to look for mistakes, but you still enjoyed it. You've seen favorite movies, or listened to favorite audiobooks dozens of times, yet, even knowing the ending, you still do it. Is it really so different?"

"Then why even bother with the pretense? Like asking me to elaborate on a question when you already know what I'm going what I meant in the first place, because you're the one that ordered me to ask it?" I must have sounded depressed, because she placed a reassuring hand on my arm.

"Because it adds flavor to the conversation," she said. "And not everything you do is under my control, Marcus. You do make choices from time to time."

"Like in West Virginia, with Alison Evans?" I asked.

"That's right," she said. "That choice was entirely your own to make."

"So I can't just trust that every decision I make is the correct one that you've decided in advance for me?"

"Again, that's right. You still need to listen to your moral compass, instead of depending on me for everything." She took a long drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke out the open window.

"I thought you said that you were always going to leave me guessing about the nature of the control you had over me," I said. "You said it would ruin the experience to know."

"This conversation was written for you long before then," she said. "I didn't want to spoil the surprise. And you don't know everything yet. One day, you will. But not today."

"Like how you manage to control and predict everything to the finest detail, yet you never seem to spend any noticeable amount of time programming me?" I replied with resignation.

"Yes," she said. "There's a simple explanation for that, but it would be quite unbelievable if I just told you. You'll need to be shown, and I'm not ready to do that for you just yet. You'll just have to wait and see."

I sighed again, and tossed my spent cigarette out the window. Then I drew out two more and lit them in my mouth before handing the spare to Rose.

"We're going to Seattle tomorrow," Rose said. "I have something special to show you there."

"Another judgment?" I asked. Rose and I hadn't worked together since West Virginia, and I had done dozens of judgments over the last few months on my own, with her critiquing my work afterwards each time.

"No," she said. "Not a judgment. I also upgraded us to a Bombardier Global 7000 jet; it cost over $85 million with the upgrades I had installed, and even has a sleeping compartment for us. It was delivered two days ago, and seats seventeen people; for some of the projects we're going to be working on until we take complete global control, we'll need to bring a staff along with us to liaise with the Workers and get things done in a timely and orderly fashion. It can fly from New York to New Delhi or Los Angeles to Beijing without refueling."

"And once we go global?" I asked.

"Then we'll have a brand new 747 jumbo jet converted into a flying command center," she replied.

I whistled. "You really don't believe in doing anything piecemeal, do you?" I asked.

"No, I don't," she said. "I know you're upset, Marcus. I know this is very difficult for you. Take some time, continue your drive, and sort out your feelings. When you're ready, come back to me. I'll be at home."

I nodded silently and exited the Lamborghini with my soda and my pack of cigarettes. I watched for a long moment as Rose's car disappeared over the horizon before getting back into the Aston Martin, and then continued driving around southeastern Wisconsin.

After an hour, I found myself in a familiar neighborhood, and pulled up to the house I knew to be owned by Brandi White. We hadn't seen each other in seven years, and hadn't spoken to each other for almost as long. I pulled out my smartphone and called her number. After three rings, she answered.

"Hello?" she said, obviously not recognizing my number on her phone.

"Brandi, It's Marc. How are you doing?"

"Marc? It's been like, forever since I've heard from you. What's the occasion?"

"I don't want to spook you, but I was in your neighborhood, and I thought I'd give you a call. I'm actually outside your house right now. Would you like to go for a drive?"

She gave a slight squeal of delight. "I'd love to! Let me just throw something on and I'll be right out."

About fifteen minutes later, Brandi bounded out of her house, her blonde hair now down past her shoulders, and got into the car. "I've never seen a ride like this before. What is it?" she asked as she put on her seatbelt and then admired the burled wood accents.

"It's a 2011 Aston Martin V-12 Vantage," I said.

"How on earth can you afford a car like this?" she asked. "I knew you were doing well, last I heard, but I didn't think you were doing _that_ well. What is this, like a half a million dollars?"

I smiled as I lowered the convertible top and blasted the heat against the chilly November night, then kicked the car into drive and started down the road. "More like half that, but even so, I can't take credit for it. It belongs to my girlfriend; she has a Lamborghini, a Bentley, and a pair of Ferraris, as well as a BMW SUV. Do you want to go to Kopp's?"

"Holy shit," Brandi said. "You have a sugar mama or something? And Kopps is fine. I haven't had frozen custard since May."

I smiled as I drove. "I guess you could say that she's a sugar mama of sorts. She has a penthouse overlooking the art museum downtown. It even has a helipad, and she's got a pair of private jets. A little Lear and a big one that seats almost twenty people."

Brandi was stunned. "She must be worth a fortune to live like that. What's she worth?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "Never asked. Certainly in the hundreds of millions, possibly over a billion dollars."

Brandi whistled. I glanced at her as she looked at me, and noticed she'd taken the trouble to put on some makeup in addition to the dress she was wearing. We caught up as we made our way to Kopp's, then continued our discussion while we ate our frozen custard in the fountain garden outside the take out restaurant.

I know you don't know what I'm talking about, but Kopp's is a Milwaukee institution. They have been around so long and developed such a following that there are constant long lines, but they have a staff that churns out burgers – just like your father claimed to have invented before he died – chicken sandwiches, and frozen custard, and they do it so fast that you never have to wait for long. Then they have a pair of parks for people to sit and enjoy their food, and at night, especially in the summer, the benches are filled as people talk and enjoy themselves. I know no such things exist in your country, at least not yet, but all that is going to change, starting tonight.

Anyway, when we were finished, we drove back to Brandi's place, taking the scenic route along the way, allowing her to enjoy the ride. When we finally arrived, she invited me inside and poured some white zinfandel for us both. We sat on her sofa, talking about old times, and how life had changed for us both. I naturally didn't tell her of my troubles, or of my stays in the psychiatric hospitals around the region, or of the trauma and breakdown that led to them.

Without warning, she put her wine down, then leaned in and kissed me. When she pulled back, she was blushing. "I guess I shouldn't have done that. You're with someone now," she said.

"Rose and I have an… understanding," I assured her. "She doesn't care who I sleep with."

"In that case," she said and stood up. She took my hand, and led me into the bedroom.

Brandi had always been a delight in bed, but on this night, there was no delight for me as we intertwined. She enjoyed herself – she always did – but I found that I just wanted the encounter to be over while it was happening, and then, after I cried out, signaling that we were done, I just wanted to burst into tears, to run away. Brandi lit a cigarette and handed it to me, then lit one of her own, and we just lay there, panting and making small talk. I did my best to hide my feelings; I had been genuinely happy to see her, but the sexual act was all wrong. I felt as if I had made a mistake.

In time, Brandi drifted off to sleep, and after a while I got out of bed and wandered naked into the kitchen. I pulled a long butcher's blade out of the block and stared at it. I could kill Brandi and then… what would The Killer do? We had killed hundreds of people together, or at least arranged for their deaths, but that was different, those were judgments. Rose could just cover it up, no matter how much evidence I left behind; my DNA was inside of Brandi, after all. Such a thing would be child's play for The Killer, but would she forgive me? Or would she judge me and throw me to the wolves? Part of me wanted to lash out, to express myself, in any way I could. I thought of my childhood, and the ways in which I would act out. My parents did a good job of preventing further violence once I had started hurting other people, but the impulse was always there.

This was one way to make a choice, perhaps one that Rose had not foreseen. Of course, as I held the knife in my hand and examined it closely, I thought that it was entirely possible that murdering someone might be Rose's intention.

I stood in silence for a long moment, my mind empty of thought, before I placed the knife back into its space in the block and returned to the bedroom. I dressed as quietly as I could, and then left the house. Brandi was still very much alive, and would never know how close to death she had come.

I drove home in silence, and pulled into my assigned space in the parking garage next to my Toyota Solara convertible, which I only drove on rare occasions. I took the private elevator up and found the penthouse dark when I entered it; it was after midnight, after all. I made my way to the bedroom, and found Rose sitting up, reading a book: Chuck Palahniuk's _Diary_. I found it ironic that she would be reading a book that she herself had written for him.

"Why is it that you feel the need to torment me, even now?" I asked her.

She sighed and smiled. "So, you didn't kill her," Rose said.

"Another test?" I asked, piqued. "You sent me over there to kill her?"

"I sent you over there and gave you a directive to stab her to death in her sleep. Taboos and morally outrageous instructions don't work with posthypnotic suggestion," she said. "You know that. I wanted to see if you had embraced the judgments to the point where you would be willing or able to murder her."

"And what if I had killed her?" I demanded.

"Then I would have been disappointed. But don't worry, I would have cleaned up the mess and wouldn't have punished you for it," she said simply.

"And a friend of mine would have been dead," I spat. "That was an awful risk you took. I just passed one of your tests a few months ago, and a similar one, too, if I recall. What was the point of this one?"

"That test," she replied, "was to see if your lifestyle meant more to you than the life of an innocent. This test was to see if you had the moral conviction to resist an outright hypnotic order to take a life without cause. That's the difference."

I sighed, and began to get undressed. "I've lost my joy, you know."

"I know," she said, not looking up from her book. "I know. Just try to get some rest."

I climbed into bed and slipped on my CPAP. I had lost over a hundred pounds over the last sixteen months, but I still used my CPAP, despite the fact that I probably didn't need it any longer. I found it almost impossible to fall asleep without the breeze blowing on my face.

I fell asleep quickly, with my back turned to Rose. I didn't feel like looking at her or speaking to her, let alone touching her. I had meant what I had said; I had lost my joy, and given everything I was processing, the knowledge that with very rare exception, everything I was doing had been decided for me well in advance, I had no idea how – without Rose's help – I would ever find it again.

 **O-O-O**

The next morning, we took a limo to Mitchell Field, which is technically called Milwaukee International Airport, and headed to hangar fourteen, which was much larger than our previous hangar. The jet – a Bombardier Global 7000, as Rose had promised – was huge, and filled with televisions, computers, and mahogany credenzas and tables. It was absolutely gorgeous, and at $85 million, it should have been. She gave me a tour of the entire vehicle while we waited for the flight crew to finish preparing for our trip. There was working space for over a dozen people, and a section with a living room that had a 85" 4K UHD television. There was even WiFi on the plane, giving us media streaming and Internet connectivity wherever we went in the world. In the rear of the plane, there was a door into the cargo compartment, and another into the rear of the plane, which contained a decent sized bedroom complete with a queen sized bed. Rose coyly asked if I wanted to break it in, but I demurred; I was in no mood for sex, and the way I felt, I didn't know if I ever would feel like being intimate again.

Twenty minutes later, Rose and I sat side by side near the front of the jet, and sipped our drinks as we taxied, and then took off for Seattle. Four hours later, we landed at SeaTac without incident or much discussion.

A limo was waiting to pick us up, and drove us thirty minutes outside of Seattle, where we came upon a large and fairly new office park. At the center of it was a huge, six story building. We pulled up to the front, and the limo waited for us at the main entrance as we stepped inside. We were greeted by a young woman in her early 30s and a man in his late 40s, both wearing blue jeans and expensive looking shoes and shirts.

"Welcome to Area 37," said the man, offering his hand to me. I shook it, nothing more. "I am Dennis Marx, director of this facility."

"This entire office park is under your control?" I asked.

"That's right," Marx said. "This is Briella Gunnarsson, my assistant."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Jones," she said as she shook my hand.

"Finally meet me?" I asked.

"That's right," said Marx. "We were responsible for the project that oversaw ironing out the details of your programming, and adjusting the programming of everyone around you since 1998. You were one of our more special and intensive projects. If you'll follow me, we have a conference table waiting in the War Room."

The pair led Rose and I up to the sixth floor, to a large, amphitheater-like room with over a hundred people working at laptops. At the front of the room was a series of screens upon which maps and dossiers on people were projected. "Alpha 29 now buying a ticket to Tunis from Minsk," said a woman's voice on overhead speakers.

Marx led us to a glass-enclosed conference room at the back of the War Room and opened the door for us. We sat down at one end of the table, which was large enough to seat twenty people. Marx picked up a remote and pointed it at a large screen on the wall closest to our end of the table and turned it on. A Powerball drawing was being displayed. "This is the final drawing for Alison Evans's winning. In three weeks, the jackpot will be up to 2.7 billion dollars, and after the cash-out and taxes, she will have a fraction over one billion dollars at her disposal."

"So you handled the CGI and did the statistical analysis for Rose?" I asked Marx.

Briella spoke up. "We leveraged Industrial Light and Magic on the Skywalker Ranch in order to do it, and we used some resources in the Rand Corporation in order to handle the analysis, but we coordinated it. Area 37 is the central Worker Hub for all of North America. Area 72 in Rio De Janeiro handles South America. We have central Hubs on every continent excepting Antarctica, and centers in every major city in the world. This Hub is the lynchpin for the entire global network, however."

"And how many Workers are there, exactly?" I asked.

Marx spoke up. "Exactly 22,198,231 as of this morning," he said.

"Twenty-two _million_ Workers?" I asked, incredulous. I suspected it would be a lot, but I had never suspected that the number was in the tens of millions.

"We have nearly eight million between India and China alone," Marx nodded.

"What are your priorities right now?" I asked.

"Our main priority is assimilating and assessing the last of the stragglers that have not been affected by the hypnotic Virus yet," Marx said. "Right now, that number is under a quarter billion people, mostly in Africa and Southeast Asia, including China and India, both of which have great numbers of people who live in rural areas or have limited access to technology. But immediate priorities change from day to day. Today, and for the last couple of weeks, for example, we have been tracking the sale and movement of fifteen thermonuclear weapons that have been sold by elements inside the Russian military to members of Al-Qaeda. We intend to intercept those weapons tomorrow, and to kill all those involved in the sale."

"Good," I said. "With hypnotic suggestion forcing people to report antisocial activities to the Workers, you're doing a much better job than the FBI, CIA, and NSA."

"We still leverage those and other organizations to do the actual heavy lifting," said Briella. "Not even President Obama will ever know about this operation, or how close he came to a nuclear holocaust."

I paused as I thought for a moment. "So are you generally self-directed, or does Rose here have day to day input?"

"We have a set of directives that we use as guidelines," Marx said. "We are essentially autonomous, but when we receive a call, text, or email, we immediately assign resources to making the new directives a reality as soon as we possibly can. We report major details to her daily, and also advise her of emergencies that fall outside the guidelines we have laid out for us."

"The reason I brought you here today," Rose said, "was not just to give you a peek behind the curtain, as it were, but to show you the kind of resources you now have at your disposal."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"She means," said Marx, "that I'm going to give you several phone numbers for directives to be called in to various continental hubs. From today onward, you will have direct access to our resources, and rather than letting Rose handle the programming of ancillary people involved in your judgments, which she then passes off to the Worker Hubs, you will be interacting with the Worker Hubs directly."

"Additionally," Rose broke in, "you will not only be taking assignments from me; you will be working autonomously. That means that you have the ability to begin projects at your own discretion. You are not to engage in nation building; that is beyond your purview at this time, but you can have a dedicated staff assigned to your own projects."

My mind reeled at the possibilities. "I already have something in mind," I said, "but it's going to take a monumental amount of money to see it through. Rose, do you have any objection to my having access to a hundred billion dollars?"

"What is the money for?" she asked me.

"My favorite experience in the entire time we've been together was the blessing of Alison Evans. I want to do that on a grander scale. I want to help people, and with your unlimited resources, I want to bless people on a regular basis."

Rose smiled. "Remember what I said about your compassion? This is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for from you." She turned to Marx. "Director, have the Federal Reserve print an additional one hundred billion dollars, off the books, and have it placed in an account for Marcus's use. Also, dedicate the staff in building twelve to his use; we'll need accountants, lawyers, and a generalized staff of orderlies to handle day to day directives."

"Yes, ma'am," said Marx. "It will be handled in three to five business days."

"Next," I said to Marx and Briella, "I want Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffett to invest twenty billion dollars apiece, and Charles and David Koch to invest ten billion dollars apiece to a joint charity that they will form dedicated to stamping out world hunger, homelessness, and provide vaccinations in third world countries. I want everyone in the world worth at least forty billion dollars to donate at least ten billion dollars to the effort."

"Any objections?" Marx asked Rose.

"None," Rose said, a soft smile upon her face.

"I also want the luxury of picking my own staff. I want people in my World of Warcraft guild to act as part of my staff in finding and enacting efforts to help the unfortunate. Each prospective person will be screened by the Workers, and vetted. If they pass vetting, they will receive help. If they have evil in their histories, they will not. How does that sound to you, Rose?"

"I think it sounds perfect for you," she said. "You're going to change a lot of lives, Marcus," she reached over and held my hand.

And just like that, with Rose's hand gently squeezing mine, I found my joy again. She had found a new way to surprise me yet again. I felt as if the entire world was mine to fix, and it was a powerful feeling, more powerful than judging someone. I had wished for this from the start: A benevolent master that would teach me her skills. She would help me, and I in turn would help others.

It was as if she had heard my prayer all those years ago, and now that prayer was finally being answered.

We spent a total of six hours touring the facility and having Marx and Briella teaching me the methods they used to get things done. In the end, I had a dozen new numbers in my smartphone, and over a hundred new codes for protocols needed to get the job done. I couldn't wait to get home so I could start lining up staff from my guild.

In the end, we took the limo back to SeaTac and flew back to Milwaukee. Once we were in the air, I took Rose by the hand and led her into the bedroom at the rear of the plane. We made love for most of the trip, and I found that any care I had about my actions being scripted or controlled was gone, because at long last, I was going to be doing what I truly wanted to do. I was going to be, finally and forever, the philanthropist I had always wanted to be.

And I was going to change the world.

* * *

 **(Author's Note: This chapter has been in the works for nine days. It has been a difficult chapter to write, and one that I took in stages. I found after several days of writing around 1000-1500 words a day that I had painted myself into a corner, and had no idea how to get out of it. Marcus had lost his joy, and I had no idea, despite days of pondering, how to get it back without scrapping most of the chapter and starting over. I tried for days to think my way out of the situation, but it wasn't until my fiancée asked me last night what I was thinking about, and when I told her I was thinking of my story, as I often was, she asked me what, specifically, I was thinking about. It was at this time that I explained my predicament, and she almost instantly came up with the solution, to give him something he wanted more than anything, to help people. Once that was decided, everything else fell into place, and I even have the concept for the next chapter, a brand new chapter. So, that said, special thanks to Brittany for helping me find the ending of my chapter, giving me a new one to write, and helping Marcus find his joy again, in more ways than one.)**


	5. Rise Of The Deltas

**.  
Tales of the Ubermensch:  
The Sorceress's Apprentice  
Chapter 5: Rise Of The Deltas  
By Gamera Obscura**

* * *

 **"Want to know a secret, though? A perverse secret? I want to feel the program move again. I want to feel her control in my life. There is terror there, but there is also wonder. When she programmed me to believe that I had proved the existence of God and that she loved me, it was the most exultant moment of my life. She gave me wonder and happiness for a few moments; I can't describe how incredible that was."**

 **-Nada the Damned (Marcus Jones) –** _ **Tales of the Ubermensch – Hack dot World**_

* * *

It was June 15th, 2013, and I was flying alone – save for the flight crew and the stewardess – in the Global to Westover Metro Airport in Chicopee, Massachusetts. My organization had been up and running for nearly six months now, and I was preparing to train two old friends to be the newest members of my public staff. They did not know the details of their employment, just that they had each received a $50,000 signing bonus, and had several bonuses lumped onto them in addition. I had requested that they sell their ten year old Honda, which had been a bottomless money pit for them, as well as all their furniture, and keep only the things they absolutely could not bear to part with. I also required that they be prepared to move to Boston, which had been a longtime dream for them anyway, at my organization's expense.

The plane touched down and taxied to the terminal, at which point I left my luggage aboard and made my way down to the waiting limousine, which ferried me into town.

Liz and Kal's apartment was on the upstairs of an older duplex, and the first thing I noticed was how small and cramped it was, with a slanted ceiling on either side of the living room. The next thing I noticed was the near tackle I received as Liz hugged me. Despite having just turned 23, she was short and adorable, with a cuddly and generous body that she was ashamed of, but I, with my tendency to learn towards larger girls, was not; she was looking forward to having bariatric surgery in a few months, at my expense. She had also suffered from severe social phobia, and to a lesser degree, so had Kal, but I had ordered them programmed to have this mitigated over a period of months before being cured completely, and had ordered that Liz become more comfortable with the way she looked. As for the severity of her social phobia, six months before, Liz would have been hiding in the bathroom at the arrival of a stranger to their home.

I hugged Liz back, and then shook Kal's hand before giving him a great big bear hug. I was at least a foot taller than either of them.

I should probably explain that both were transgender in some respects. Liz and Kal had both been born biologically female. While Liz was technically agendered, she identified as a male one day, a female the next. I had given up trying to figure out her gender moods and had taken to just calling her a "she", even though Kal called her a "he" most of the time.

"Let me see," I said, and Liz smiled broadly for me. As she had told me over a year before when she had joined my guild on World of Warcraft, she had wretchedly crooked teeth. In fact, they were so bad that she would routinely bite the inside of her mouth while chewing her food, causing bleeding. Now, her teeth sported new braces, paid for by my organization. In a few years, her teeth would be perfectly straight, and she wouldn't be afraid to smile any longer.

Then I moved to Kal. "Which do you want to see first?" he asked. Unlike Liz, Kal had always identified as a male, and I had arranged to have his name legally changed some time ago, which had stopped the panic attacks whenever someone called him by his female birth name, and had helped with his feelings of dysphoria and worthlessness.

"Let's see the tablet first," I said. Kal smiled and nodded, his curly brown hair bobbing as his head moved. Kal could easily pass for a teenaged boy, despite being around 20. He took a few steps back, welcoming me inside the apartment, and Liz closed the door behind me as Kal picked up a 27" art tablet I had purchased for him, which bore a picture of my main World of Warcraft character, Haruhiko, on it, the work still in progress.

"Very nice," I said. "I like the picture as well. Are you going to color it?"

"Eventually," Kal said, "But Liz does all of my coloring on my old tablet."

"Well, we'll need to get her a big one too, then, won't we?" I asked.

Kal rolled his eyes. "Papa Haru, you've done so much for us already!"

"Kal," I said, "I haven't even begun today. Now, let's see the bindings."

Kal smiled and lifted up his shirt, blushing a little. There were white bindings over his chest to compact his pectoral muscles and help the skin spring back after the breast removal I had paid for. He was lightly muscled for someone so slender, and now had a boyish body to go with his boyish good looks.

"Does it still hurt?" I asked?

"Not really. The pain meds help, but the real problem is my asthma. Having my chest bound like this causes some severe breathing problems, especially at night, but it will be worth it when I can take the bindings off for good. I could never wear bindings before the surgery because of the asthma, but this isn't quite as bad, because there's not really anything left to bind." He put his shirt back down.

Both were on Social Security Disability for their crippling social phobias and other issues, and had been forced to make ends meet with around fifteen-hundred dollars a month between them. They had told me that they had been afraid to spend most of the hundred thousand dollars I had sent them, because they were concerned I was going to ask for it back. I had requested that they not purchase any vehicles or make any changes to their living situation, short of being prepared to move, however.

The apartment was littered with stacks of boxes, and their cat Evan, barely a kitten, was in a carrier. I looked at my watch and figured that the movers would be arriving in around fifteen minutes. At that point, Kal's mom Moira came out of the bathroom, and also gave me a big hug, thanking me for helping Liz and Kal in the past, and doing so much for them now. "Thank you so much for taking care of my boys," she said. Unlike many parents of transgender people, she was open minded and fully embraced her "son's" desire to change his gender.

My World of Warcraft guild was home to over a hundred people, and was filled with gay, lesbian, and transgender people. I had advertised it as an LGBTQ+ guild, and as such, we were a safe haven to those who lived alternative lifestyles. I had already taken steps to employ the officers of the guild, and today I was inducting two of the regular members into my organization.

I smiled at Moira, and told her that it was my pleasure to make the lives of my friends better, and that I was going to do even more than they could possibly have dreamed. We sat on the floor and had sodas while we waited for the movers, who were around a half hour late showing up for their pickup.

Once they had arrived, Kal turned the keys over to Moira, and gave her a big hug and a kiss; it was her job to oversee the loading of the truck, and to turn in the key to the landlady once the job was done. As the first of the boxes were being loaded, we said our farewells to her, and then got into the limo, taking only the cat carrier with us, and drove back to the airport.

"That's your plane?" Liz asked as we approached the Global. "Holy shit! It's huge! Like a small airliner."

"Yes, that's Tessa," I said; I had taken the initiative and named our jets. "Vera's a Lear that seats eight passengers; she's back in Milwaukee, unless Rose is off on a job."

We entered the Global, and the "boys" were stunned at the opulence, marveling at the wide leather seats, the living room, the mahogany tables, and the bedroom in the rear with a shower. We settled in at the fore compartment, which was only separated from the cockpit by the dedicated crew lounge. The flight attendant we employed took our drinks order as we waited for the plane to get clearance from the tower to taxi for our short jaunt to Boston, and we strapped in before enjoying our daiquiris.

"So, Papa," Kal asked me, "what's this all about? You say you have a job for us, but you know that we can't really work. I have a feeling that with a hundred thousand dollars in signing bonuses, and a place for us in Boston, that you're going to expect a lot in return."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "Nobody just gives that kind of money without expecting something major in exchange."

I smiled and reached into a backpack I had next to my chair, pulling out two glossy folders, then handed one to each of them.

"Delta+ Employee Handbook," read Liz. "What's Delta+?"

"Well," I said as the plane began to move, "in science and mathematics, the symbol Delta from the Greek alphabet is the symbol for change. Delta Plus is an organization dedicated to positive change in people's lives. My researchers identify people who have frankly been fucked over by karma or fate, and find ways using our nearly unlimited resources, to make it all better, or at least as better as we can."

"How much money do you have to spend?" Kal asked as the pair flipped through the booklets.

"One hundred billion dollars to start with; you will be taking the title of Deltas, or agents of change. Liz, you will be Delta Nine, and Kal, you will be Delta Ten. As such, you will each receive $10,000 per week, or $520,000 a year, with a 5% raise annually. You will also receive a month's paid vacation, unlimited sick days, and premium benefits, including the equivalent of 10% of your annual salary donated to your retirement funds," I said. At the mention of the budget, Kal dropped the handbook, and at the recitation of their salaries, Liz almost spit out her drink.

"We're… We're making over a million dollars a year?" Kal almost shouted at me.

"That's right. All to travel around the world and make people's lives better," I replied with a smile. I pulled out a box, and handed over a new, top of the line smartphone to each of them, complete with Otterbox Defender protective cases, and a box of business cards with the cell phone number for each printed upon it, along with their Delta+ designation in place of a real name, and the organization's name and logo. "These are the tools of your trade, and relevant phone numbers for the people you will be using to coordinate your work are already programmed into the phones. There are also new computers at our destination."

The plane took off as we began to discuss the particulars of the job as well as the fact that we would be spending a couple of days settling them in to their new housing, paid for by Delta+, getting them used to their new company car, and enjoying a few fine meals out before I was to take them on their first training assignment. I then pulled out an envelope from my backpack and opened it, removing a pair of black Amex Centurion cards from it, with their names and the "Delta Plus" corporation name listed. I passed over a pair of pens for them to sign the backs. "The cards are already activated for you," I said. "You will use them for travel expenses including plane tickets, rental cars, and hotel rooms. Don't be shy about renting suites, luxury cars, or flying first class, whenever available."

By the time we landed twenty minutes later, the couple looked as though they were in shock. We had the flight attendant roll my bags out through the terminal, and to the waiting car out front. I gestured to the red vehicle, sleek and sporty that sat before them. "This is your company car. It's a Tesla S-70D 'Whitestar', and has a range of 240 miles between recharges. It costs approximately $90,000 and is for your exclusive use. Liz, you'll be driving. Your new home is already programmed into the in-dash GPS."

As the flight attendant loaded my bags into the trunk, Liz ran her hand along the contours of the car. "I've dreamed for years of having a Tesla," she said. "I think this may be the best day of my life."

"And we've barely begun," I replied. "It's just going to get better from here."

We got into the car, with Kal in the back along with Evan in the cat carrier, because I needed the leg room of the front seat, and Liz settled in to the driver's seat, setting the leather bucket settings and mirrors for maximum comfort, before fiddling with the GPS. She finally found the "Home" button and pressed it, then tentatively began to drive towards our destination.

It was around a fifteen-minute drive from Logan International Airport to the upscale neighborhood just off of Fenway Park, during which time I paired the Bluetooth connector on the phones to the car's system, and finally we pulled up in front of a 19th century stone-fronted townhouse. "There's a garage in the back," I explained. "It has a charging station for the car's batteries we had installed earlier this week. The garage door opener built into the sun flap is already programmed to open it. That's the place," I nodded towards the grey stone townhouse.

Liz was growing increasingly stunned. "This is it? How much does a place like this cost?" she asked.

"It was 1.2 million dollars to start with, and then we spent around 400,000 renovating it, and another 120,000 dollars furnishing it with the help of a professional interior decorator."

Liz almost dropped the car keys at the revelation. "H-how much do we have to pay in rent?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said with a smile. "It's part of your benefits package as an employee of Delta+."

Kal leaned back in his seat and rolled his head back to look at the ceiling. "I don't fucking believe this," he said.

We exited the vehicle and went inside. I set my bags in the foyer while the boys admired the impeccably-appointed interior. The house was three stories tall, with four bedrooms, three and a half baths, and a finished basement in addition to the garage out back. There were ancient fieldstone fireplaces on each level, hardwood floors refinished to a high gloss, and the kitchen had granite countertops and brand new, stainless steel appliances. Even the bathroom had been renovated with white tiles and black grout, and a double-sink granite vanity and a two-person glass shower.

As I gave them a tour of the home, they became more and more excited. We ended in the rear entryway by the kitchen, where a cat's sandbox was waiting for Evan, not far from freshly filled food and water bowls. Kal put down the carrier and opened it. Evan slowly inched his way out, unsure of himself, and then bounded into the box, leaving behind a clump before exiting it.

" _Now_ it's a home," Kal said with a grin. Liz giggled and held her hand over her mouth as she grinned as well.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out two rings of keys. A front door key, a back door key, a garage key, and a mailbox key on each, and handed them to Liz and Kal in turn. They both literally burst into tears and hugged each other at the fact that they had been rescued from an uncomfortable living situation and seemingly endless poverty with a wave of my hand. When they were finished hugging each other, they kissed before turning their attention to me, hugging me tearfully, each in turn.

When the embraces were over, I stepped into the kitchen. "Everything's fully stocked, even with liquor and groceries; I had them fully stock your larder, too, so you'll have food for weeks. I hope you like what they ended up buying for you. Can I pour you both a drink?"

Three hours later, when everyone was good and inebriated, and we were enjoying the expensive furniture of the living room and the ultra high definition picture of the supremely large television there, there was a knock at the door, and Kal answered it, to find that their possessions had made the nearly two hour journey to the house. As I sat and enjoyed the show, Liz and Kal directed the movers to take the boxes and small pieces of furniture the couple had chosen to retain to their various rooms. I took the time to hook up their gaming consoles to the living room television, to find a place to set the chargers for the controllers, and had it all done in time for the movers to leave, at which time I signed for the service.

By that time, it was roughly six o'clock, and I had kept it a secret that I had dinner reservations for three at Asta, one of Boston's finest restaurants. Liz drove us there in the Tesla, and we opted for the very expensive eight-course tasting menu for each of us. Since Asta requests that everyone at the table agree on their tasting choices, it took us nearly twenty minutes to figure out what we were going to eat, but it was well worth it, as were the cocktails we downed as we waited for each new course to arrive. The boys had never been to such an amazing dinner before, and even I, who had become used to world-class restaurants over the last two years, was surprisingly impressed.

Afterward, we went back to the townhouse and enjoyed watching a movie on the 4K-Blu-Ray player before skimming through Netflix offerings on the Roku I had provided. As it was getting late, and we had a day of unpacking ahead of us tomorrow, I carried my bags up to the third floor, and set up my CPAP for the night, using a pair of headphones and my iPad to play myself to sleep to the sound of one of my favorite television shows.

The next morning, I rose early, and found Liz and Kal already awake, with Liz busy in the kitchen making eggs, bacon, and toast for us, with fresh squeezed orange juice that had been purchased for their enjoyment. After breakfast, we began the task of unpacking the boxes and finding places for their things. There were plenty of books, manga, movies, music, and of course clothes and sundries. By the end of the day we were exhausted, and I ordered a couple of pizzas and sodas for us. We spent the evening watching television shows on Netflix, laughing, talking, joking, and drinking, although I warned them to avoid drinking enough to risk a hangover, as we had an early flight out the next morning, and a full day ahead of us as I oversaw their first assignment.

We called it a night early again, and went to bed around 9PM.

Early the next day, I called us a taxi and we took it to Logan before boarding the Global and flying out towards Arizona. As we flew and enjoyed a light meal, we went over the dossier on our client and discussed strategy. I gave them an overview on our general guidelines in situations like these, and while we ironed out specifics on what we were going to do when we got to Scottsdale, I posed several hypothetical scenarios that we had actually dealt with in the past, and found that they had a good grasp of the fundamentals of Delta+'s style of philanthropy, tossing in a few details to show them better how I wanted things done. I advised them that for the first year, each client's compensation package would have to have my seal of approval before moving forward. They nodded their assent as they sat in their wide leather seats, holding hands. They had smiles seemingly plastered upon their faces, and both agreed that even without the high salary, free house, car, and expense account, what they were being asked to do constituted a true dream job for them.

After around five hours in the air, we landed at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, and were met outside by a representative from Enterprise with the keys to the Mercedes I had ordered, which was sitting curbside. Liz took the wheel, with Kal in the back seat again, and Liz programmed in the address for our client. A few minutes later, we were on our way.

The drive to Scottsdale wasn't a long one, and before long we found ourselves in front of a modest yet run-down house. "This must be the place," I said as we pulled up. Sure enough, the address matched, and the three of us departed the vehicle and walked up to the front door. I rang the doorbell, and an Asian woman in her mid- to late-20s answered the door.

"I'm looking for Yoko Strelewicz," I said. The young lady opened the door wider for us.

"She's waiting for you in the dining room," she said. "My mother said to expect you. You're from Delta+?" she asked.

"That's right," I said. "I'm Delta Prime, and these are Deltas Nine and Ten."

The young woman, who introduced herself as Lisa, brought us into the dining room where her mother was waiting, as promised. The dining room was in shambles; it was half torn apart, as if someone had torn out the walls years ago and started hanging sheetrock to renovate the room, but the project had been abandoned long ago. The table was austere, and there was a pot of tea and a half a dozen cups arranged in front of it. The older woman began pouring tea for all of us, and her daughter Lisa began arranging it at the various seats around the table for us.

"Yoko Strelewicz?" I asked, hoping that I was pronouncing the Polish last name correctly. Her daughter Lisa was obviously only half Japanese, and her dossier said that she had two other children, both grown, that were also sired by the same father.

"Yes, that's me," she said in a thick accent. She attempted to rise in greeting, but I motioned for her to stay seated. I passed over a business card, and Liz and Kal did the same.

"I am Delta Prime, and this is Delta Nine, and Delta Ten," I explained, gesturing to Liz and Kal in turn. "You'll please excuse us if we do not use our real names, as the risk of kidnapping or violence against us is very real, should our names ever get out. We represent a vast wealth that is to be used to help people, and there are less than savory individuals that would like nothing better than to get their hands on some of that money."

"Yes, I understand," Yoko said as we sat down and Lisa joined us, sitting next to her mother. "I have heard of your organization on the news. You do great things."

"I'd like to think we do," I said. "You'll please excuse my associates here; they are new to the organization, and this is their first training mission. With my help, they have created a compensation package that we think you will be extremely happy with."

"How did you find me?" Yoko asked, ignoring the prospect of compensation for the moment.

"The President of the United States is a friend of mine," I said truthfully. "He has allowed us to use records kept by the FBI and the NSA to find people in situations like yours in order to help them. He and his lawyers do not feel that our data mining constitutes a breach of the public trust, given the fact that our work is strictly for the benefit of our clients."

"I see," she said nervously. She was obviously very excited, but seemed a little frightened by us.

"Ms. Strelewicz, would you mind telling us your story? We have a dossier on you, but it would be helpful to hear it from your own mouth."

Lisa broke in. "My mother isn't really fluent, so it would probably be best if I told it," she explained.

"That's fine," I said.

Lisa took a deep breath, then began. "Our family, the Yatsuhashi Clan, was very wealthy up until the first half of the 20th century. We had a few dozen factories all over Japan, and during World War II, they were converted for munitions and airplane fabrication. During the war, every single factory was bombed and completely destroyed, leaving my family virtually penniless by the time the conflict ended."

Lisa took a sip of tea, then continued. "My mother moved to the United States in the late 1970s to go to school, and eventually met my father, Bill Strelewicz. He worked as a pipe fitter and had never been to college. Despite this, they fell in love and got married several years later. He was a union man, and was able to support her after she finished school. My mother took a job, but never really cultivated a career, due to her inability to speak English fluently. Together they had three children over the next twelve years – I'm the oldest, at 27 – after which he died on the job of a massive heart attack."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Liz said to both of them, and Kal nodded his head.

"Yes, our sincerest condolences," he said.

Lisa thanked us, then went on. "It was a terrible time for our family, but the worst was yet to come. It turned out that the Union had misfiled his life insurance policy, so even though they were deducting money to pay for it from his check, we received no benefit from the policy. As a result, my mother began to work three jobs to keep us fed, housed and clothed. You see the way we live here, sirs, ma'am. We don't have much, and she could only just barely make ends meet. None of us were able to go to college and have been working minimum-wage jobs to help, but it's just not enough. During the Great Recession, my mother lost two of her jobs, and has only found one to replace them, and that was at minimum wage also. Our house is now in foreclosure, and we're currently six months from a Sheriff's Sale. We have no prospect but to take a much smaller space, and to each share bedrooms. It's a terrible situation, but we have no other choice. My mother is not too many years from receiving Social Security, but we've been told that the amount of money she will receive will not allow her to ever retire, and she'll still need the help of me, my brother, and my sister to survive."

I looked at both of the women and sighed. "It's a terrible situation indeed, and one that is not unlike many I've heard over the last six months as we've worked our magic in order to help those who have been dealt a cruel hand by fate." I turned to my companions. "Nine? Ten? This is your part of the meeting. Please take over."

Liz smiled, and glanced down at the notes she had written down in one of the leather notepad binders I had given both of them on the plane. "In order to alleviate your financial burden, our first step will be to pay off your mortgage, meaning you will be able to stay in your home. On top of that, we will also pay off any outstanding loans or credit card debt you have, including personal loans."

Lisa gasped and her mother covered her mouth with her hands, and tears began rolling down her face. I smiled. This was by far the best part of the job.

"Next," said Kal, "We will provide a vehicle of your choice for you and each of your children, so long as you select a vehicle valued at under 40,000 dollars. We will provide gas and insurance for six months."

Liz was up again next. "We have also allocated an additional quarter million dollars to renovate and furnish your house with the services of an architect and an interior decorator."

Both Lisa and Yoko were crying now, while Kal and Liz had huge smiles on their faces. "Thank you so much," said Yoko between sobs.

"We're not finished yet," I said to them. "Not even close to finished."

Lisa and Yoko had stunned looks on their faces. We were washing away all their problems with a snap of our fingers, and the prospect of positive change in their lives just kept getting better and better.

Kal spoke up next. "For your children, Yoko, we have provided a college fund to allow them to go to a private university of their choice, and donations will be made as necessary to the institutions to ensure that they are admitted to the school of their choice. Additionally, a salary of 40,000 dollars a year will be allocated to them for apartments and living expenses until they graduate; masters degrees and doctorates will be included, if desired. Once they have graduated, they will receive assistance from our career development division. That means that they pick a corporation or organization in their field, and an offer will be made by Delta+ to pay 100% of their salaries for five years, virtually ensuring that they will be hired. After five years, Delta+ will pay 50% of their salaries, and after ten years, 25% of their salaries, until finally, after fifteen years, the corporation will be required to pay the full amount of their compensation. By that time, they will be completely established in their field of choice."

Lisa wiped her eyes. "So you're guaranteeing a career of our choice for me, Gabriel, and Liliyan?"

"That's right," I said. "We're confident that you'll have no problem finding work so long as Delta+ is paying for your salary. In fact, you are likely to be fast-tracked to management, because the more responsibility they give you, the greater the benefit they receive at reduced or no cost."

"Now, finally," said Liz, "we come to the problem of your inability to retire. We are going to make arrangements for five million dollars be placed in a trust in your name, Yoko. You will receive approximately six percent interest from the trust, which will mean you will receive approximately $5750 a week, or $300,000 per year. After taxes, that comes to roughly $4275 a week."

"That's more than I take home in three months," Yoko said, tears still streaming down her face. "Every week?"

"That's right," Liz said. "Every week. You will start to receive checks within a month, or we can arrange direct deposit for your compensation. It's your choice."

"And what do I have to do to receive all of this?" Yoko asked.

"Fill out some paperwork, make some arrangements, make a few phone calls," said Kal. "That's it. For example, when you're ready to buy one of the cars, you call me or Nine, and we will pay using one of our credit cards. Normally an auto dealership wouldn't allow you to buy an entire automobile on a credit card, but we will pay a surcharge to offset the cost of using credit cards. Also, pay full sticker price. Don't worry about talking down the price on the vehicles."

"For the house, we'll need the name of your lender and the account number in order to pay off the remaining balance. Then we'll select a contractor and architect for you; if you're not happy with them, you tell us and we find someone else. They'll come to see you; you handle the arrangements of the renovation and furnishings, and the invoices go to us; we will pay the bills in full."

"I can't believe that you're willing to do all of this and expect nothing in return," said Lisa.

I finally broke in. "Your gratitude and happiness is enough," I said. "It's what we do. This is our job, taking hurt and making it all better. Is there anything else you need?"

Yoko was hesitant, as if she were afraid to kill the golden goose. "My sister-in-law has cancer and no insurance. She's had to put her house up for sale in order to pay for the treatment, and I have been unable to help her."

"That wasn't in our dossier," I replied. "Ten, you'll handle that. Pay off her house, pay for any medical bills, including reimbursing the family for any bills already paid for, and arrange to have any future bills covered. Also, arrange to have her flown out to Sloane-Kettering in New York City to have a world-class oncologist evaluate her and come up with a proper treatment plan." I paused. "And get the entire family some good insurance while you're at it."

"Got it," Kal said, writing down a few notes on his leather-bound pad. "I'll get right on it. We'll need the name, address and phone number of your sister-in-law," he said. Yoko provided the information from memory and Kal wrote down everything he needed to take care of it.

Finally, the meeting ended, and we all stood. Yoko fell into my arms, sobbing, while Lisa hugged Kal. Yoko and Lisa traded positions, and in time, Liz, Kal, and I had received tearful hugs from Yoko and Lisa both. Nine and Ten and I waved goodbye from the walkway and made our way back to the Mercedes. As Liz got into the driver's seat and Kal got into the back, Kal placed his hands over his face for a moment and then blurted out, "That was fucking _incredible_!"

"Yes," said Liz. "That was truly amazing. Thank you, Papa."

I smiled. "It's all part of your job, now. You'll receive a dossier by email once, maybe twice a week. You might have to travel outside the county, so make sure you get passports as soon as you can. Once you have them, report that fact to the number in your phones marked "Control". They'll adjust your assignments accordingly. In cases where you are working outside of the English-speaking world, just report to Control that you need an interpreter, and they'll make arrangements to have one assist you."

Liz started back towards the airport. "Do we want to stop somewhere for an early dinner?" she asked.

"I hear the Fuego Bistro in Phoenix is one of the best restaurants they have," I said. "Any objections?"

No one dissented, so I plugged in the information on the GPS, and twenty minutes later, our car was in the hands of the valet parking service and we made our way inside the restaurant.

That afternoon, I enjoyed great food, good drinks, and wonderful company as we all reflected on the day's events. The boys were thrilled at their new jobs, and couldn't wait to get home and start enjoying their new house. "Anything you don't know how to do or don't want to be bothered with, you just give the details to Control at Delta+ Headquarters in Seattle, and they'll cover it for you," I said.

"Thank you, Papa," said Liz. "Is there anything we can do to make all of this up to you?" she asked.

I laughed. "No, not at all. As with the Strelewicz family, your gratitude and happiness is all I need."

"Well, you've got that in abundance," said Kal.

We finished our meal and then drove back to the airport, turning in the car and making our way back to the Global and lifting off for Boston again.

With five hours' flight ahead of us, I brought the boys back to the bedroom in the rear of the plane, and told them that they should take their ease on the queen-sized memory foam bed. "Take a nap, lay there and talk, whatever. I don't care," I said and smiled, and the boys agreed. "By the way, the room is soundproofed."

Liz closed the door behind me, and I chuckled to myself as I heard the door lock. I made my way to the plane's living room, and streamed some _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_ and _Firefly._ About four hours later, Liz and Kal joined me on the sofa, both rested and freshly showered.

"How does it feel to join the Mile High Club?" I asked them as they sat down and pushed the button to signal the flight attendant.

"Fucking awesome," said Liz, who, like Kal, was blushing . "Thank you for that, too, Papa."

The female flight attendant arrived and took their drink orders, returning ten minutes later with a pair of daiquiris, and we watched television until it was time to strap in for a landing.

The flight crew had arranged for a limousine upon our arrival, and it was waiting for us curbside once we exited Logan Airport. A short ride later, we were back at the townhouse. Kal unlocked the door with his keys, and sighed heavily as he opened the door to his new home. He then scooped up Liz in his arms and carried her across the threshold, both of them laughing as he did so.

I followed them inside, and as it was after 11PM, I made my apologies and headed back to the third floor to sleep in the guest room.

The next morning, I showered, shaved, packed, and made my way down to the first floor to the sounds and smells of breakfast cooking. After another lovely home-cooked breakfast, I said my goodbyes to Liz and Kal. Neither were crying, but both were smiling and filled with happiness as I left them to their new lives. This was my ninth training, and even though they were all roughly the same in certain ways, I knew that I would never tire of the generosity or the gratitude I received in showering my friends with gifts of cars, houses, and incomes to exceed anything they could otherwise ever hope to make.

I stood outside at the curb, waiting for the taxi, and just smiled to myself. The last six months had by far been the best of my life. I still had to do judgments, but blessings were by far my favorite thing. Delta+ had already identified 25,000 families to bless, and eventually, when my entire guild was inducted into the organization, we were going to find and save them all, and more.

 **O-O-O**

It was a short ride to Logan, and then a two-hour flight back to Milwaukee. I had a helicopter waiting to fly me back to the penthouse, and I arrived just a few minutes after taking off. Rose was waiting for me in the Great Room, and once the attendant had dropped my bags inside, and Penny had taken them into the bedroom to unpack them for me and start a load of laundry, I sat down. A glass of iced tea was waiting for me, and I downed half of it in one go.

"So?" Rose asked, expectantly. "How was it?"

"It was great, as always," I said. "We're doing great work out there, and our employees are the happiest in the world by far."

"And the adjustments you had made to them?" she asked.

"Perfect so far," I replied. "They had no fear of strangers, of travel, of new situations. The 'cure' is working beautifully. They'll be brand new people once they're fully adjusted. I also have a week before I have to see to the next trainee. This one's going to be especially fun and interesting."

"I'm glad," Rose said. "I've missed you over the last four days, love."

"And I've missed you as well. Do anything important while I was away?" I said.

"Yes," she answered. "But nothing I can talk about right now. Let's just say the numbers are firming up nicely. We may even be ahead of schedule."

"Wonderful," I said. "The sooner Totality is achieved, the sooner we can begin making real, substantial changes."

Rose stood, and took me by the hand, then led me down the corridors to the master suite, where Penny was just finishing setting up my CPAP, having already sorted out my dirty clothes and put them in the wash, and dealt with the remainder in my bags.

"I'm just finished here," Penny said. "Is there anything you need from me right now?"

"No, thank you, Penny," Rose said. "But we do need the room."

"Of course," she said. "I'll leave you two alone. Please let me know if there's anything you require."

"We will," I said. "Thank you again for seeing to my things."

"My pleasure," Penny said, and excused herself, closing the door behind her.

Once we were alone, Rose winked at me. "I have a surprise for you today," she said.

"What's that?" I asked with interest and a hint of fear.

She spoke a hidden trigger, and then all my memories of my life for the last twelve years were temporarily locked away from me. For the next twelve hours, I would be thirty years old again. I had no memory of Delilah, or Rose, or any of the traumatic events I had endured and then been made to forget, then remember again. I suddenly believed I was with a woman I had just met, obviously a very wealthy woman, if the suite I was standing in was any indication. She was beautiful to me, and I was excited as she stepped up and ran her hands up my chest. Happily, I leaned down and kissed her as she began to unbutton my shirt.

It was going to be an interesting night.

* * *

 **(Author's Note: This chapter is the embodiment of a dream, a dream I have had for over half a decade. I keep a very complex spreadsheet that contains a list of people and projected costs spread over thirty years, of things I might be able to do if I won the current Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot (depending on which is higher). I've even toyed with a hypothetical scenario examining what I could and would be willing to do if I had a hundred billion dollars to play with. It was then that the position of Delta was invented, nearly four years ago. My fiancée Brittany, in reading the first half of this chapter, even suggested that I get a tattoo of a hypothetical Delta+ logo somewhere on my body as the expression of that ideal, the desire to help others, and the reflection of positive changes in my life over the last few years. I may end up doing just that. As with previous chapters, my excitement grows as I draw closer to the inevitable conclusion of this tale, and the revelation of who Marcus is speaking to, and my life continues to change for the better as I explore the fantasies that are contained in this story.)**


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